Galatians lesson #7

GALATIANS # 7
HISTORY
An overview (6)
7/19/10

As Karl Barth and J.I. Packer described (excerpts last week) without God’s incremental revelation of Himself there is no way we could ever come to know Him:

Isaiah 55:6-9 ( KJV )
Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

The first thing that God taught us about himself (when Adam and Eve disobeyed him) is that He is, always was, and will always be, very serious about our obedience to Him and our trusting Him. According to the wisest man that ever lived, that is why He made us:

Ecclesiastes 12:13 ( KJV )
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

The consequences of defying Him, not accepting His love, are always disastrous, the punishment Adam and Eve’s rebellion brought upon mankind was the beginning, the scriptures record instance after instance of God patiently correcting and teaching us – we humans tend to learn slow - sometimes the just punishment at first appears harsh (the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the plagues in Egypt, etc) the book of Numbers provides a striking example:

Numbers 15:32-36 ( KJV ) But the soul that doeth ought presumptuously, whether he be born in the land, or a stranger, the same reproacheth the LORD; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
Because he hath despised the word of the LORD, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.
And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day.
And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation.
And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him.
And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.
And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses.

God is Love (1 John 4: 8) so how could he demand such harsh sentences, for what appears to be minor infraction of the law? Well, There are no minor infractions of the law; you either love Him with all your heart, mind and strength, in which case you “keep his commandments”, or you don’t…

We find part of the answer to this paradox in the preceding verses vv 22 -31:

Numbers 15:22-31 ( KJV )
And if ye have erred, and not observed all these commandments, which the LORD hath spoken unto Moses,
Even all that the LORD hath commanded you by the hand of Moses, from the day that the LORD commanded Moses, and henceforward among your generations;
Then it shall be, if ought be committed by ignorance without the knowledge of the congregation, that all the congregation shall offer one young bullock for a burnt offering, for a sweet savour unto the LORD, with his meat offering, and his drink offering, according to the manner, and one kid of the goats for a sin offering.
And the priest shall make an atonement for all the congregation of the children of Israel, and it shall be forgiven them; for it is ignorance: and they shall bring their offering, a sacrifice made by fire unto the LORD, and their sin offering before the LORD, for their ignorance:
And it shall be forgiven all the congregation of the children of Israel, and the stranger that sojourneth among them; seeing all the people were in ignorance.
And if any soul sin through ignorance, then he shall bring a she goat of the first year for a sin offering.
And the priest shall make an atonement for the soul that sinneth ignorantly, when he sinneth by ignorance before the LORD, to make an atonement for him; and it shall be forgiven him.
Ye shall have one law for him that sinneth through ignorance, both for him that is born among the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sojourneth among them.

Very important point here, for the first time God provides a means of atoning for sins – not salvation: atonement (more on this when we get into Paul’s Christology/soterology). The blood of goats, lambs etc can’t save, only atone, foreshadowing the coming (first promised in Genesis 3: 15) of The One whose blood can save: Jesus Christ Our Lord.

Even as God causes these things to become more and more apparent, giving us more and more information, we humans “kick against the goads” and do astonishingly stupid, arrogant things, for instance, several hundred years later, after God has patiently revealed more and more, after witnessing miracle after miracle:

Isaiah 28
Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine!
Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand.
The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet:
And the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up.
In that day shall the LORD of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people,
And for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate.
But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.
Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

These drunken arrogant rulers mock God:

Title : Hard Sayings of the Bible
Edition : Fourth
Isaiah 28:13 ( KJV )
Do and Do, Rule on Rule?
(Isaiah 28:13) This translation appears to be little more than nonsense. What is the prophet really saying, and what is the meaning of “Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there”? The problem here is with the translations of the Hebrew. They fail to take into account that what follows in this meaningless chatter are the impressions and mocking representations of those drunken listeners of the prophet. The words are no doubt slurred by virtue of their inebriated states, mockingly going back to their childhood rubrics for memorizing the alphabet. But they also are represented in the Hebrew by means of an abbreviation, where the first letter is the letter for the alphabet and the second consonant is the letter waw, here used as a sign for an abbreviation. The Masoretes added an unnecessary “a” class vowel to make it appear that it was some type of Hebrew word, but no exact fit for such a word is usually identified. The words rendered in the niv as “do” and “rule,” or in the older versions as “precept upon precept,” “line upon line,” misunderstand the fact that the Hebrew is representing letters of the alphabet: “ṣādê upon ṣāde, ṣāde upon ṣāde, qôp̄ upon qôp̄, qôp̄ upon qôp̄,” approximately where p and q come in the English alphabet. They are mocking the prophet’s preaching by sneering, “The word of the Lord amounts to ‘Watch your p’s and watch your q’s; watch your p’s and watch your q’s.’ That’s all it is—one rule after another.” With that, they stagger and reel, and then vomit on the tables where they are drinking (Isa 28:7-8), laughing over the words with which the prophet has wounded them, but without any evidence of change. Our expression “mind your p’s and q’s,” of course, comes from the similar saying that one must watch his “pints and quarts” of liquor. But these rascals had turned it around and aimed it at the prophet for having what they deemed too many rules and injunctions against sin. The result, however, is that they themselves fall backward, are injured, snared and finally captured, both figuratively and actually in the Assyrian invasion that was to come.

, or as Adam Clarke described it:

Title : Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Old Testament
Edition : First
Copyright : Electronic Edition STEP Files Copyright © 1999, Parsons Technology, Inc.

Whom shall he teach knowledge?” Whom, say they, would he teach knowledge?”—The scoffers mentioned below, verse 14, are here introduced as uttering their sententious speeches; they treat God’s method of dealing with them, and warning them by his prophets, with contempt and derision. What, say they, doth he treat us as mere infants just weaned? doth he teach us like little children, perpetually inculcating the same elementary lessons, the mere rudiments of knowledge; precept after precept, line after line, here and there, by little and little? imitating at the same time, and ridiculing, in verse 10, the concise prophetical manner. God, by his prophet, retorts upon them with great severity their own contemptuous mockery, turning it to a sense quite different from what they intended. Yes, saith he, it shall be in fact as you say; ye shall be taught by a strange tongue and a stammering lip; in a strange country; ye shall be carried into captivity by a people whose language shall be unintelligible to you, and which ye shall be forced to learn like children. And my dealing with you shall be according to your own words: it shall be command upon command for your punishment; it shall be line upon line, stretched over you to mark your destruction, (compare 2 Kings 21:13); it shall come upon you at different times, and by different degrees, till the judgments, with which from time to time I have threatened you, shall have their full accomplishment. Jerome seems to have rightly understood the general design of this passage as expressing the manner in which the scoffers, by their sententious speeches, turned into ridicule the warnings of God by his prophets, though he has not so well explained the meaning of the repetition of their speech in verse 13. His words are on verse 9 “Solebant hoc ex persona prophetarum ludentes dicere:” and on verse 14 “Quod supra diximus, cum irrisione solitos principes Judaeorum prophetis dicere, manda, remanda, et caetera his similia, per quae ostenditur, nequaquam eos prophetarum credidisse sermonibus, sed prophetiam habuisse despectui, praesens ostendit capitulum, per quod appellantur viri illusores.” Hieron. in loc. And so Jarchi interprets the word משלים mishelim in the next verse: Qui dicunt verba irrisionis parabolice.” And the Chaldee paraphrases verse 11 to the same purpose, understanding it as spoken, not of God, but of the people deriding his prophets: “Quoniam in mutatione loquelae et in lingua subsannationis irridebant contra prophetas, qui prophetabant populo huic.”—L. Isaiah 28:10 For precept must be upon precept—The original is remarkably abrupt and sententious. The hemistichs are these:— לצוצולצוצוכי latsavtsavlatsavtsavki לקוקולקוקו lakaukaulakaukau שםזעירשםזעיר shamzeeirshamzeeir For,—Command to command, command to command. Line to line, line to line. A little there, a little there. Kimchi says צו tsau, precept, is used here for מצוה mitsuah, command, and is used in no other place for it but here. צו tsau signifies a little precept, such as is suited to the capacity of a child; see verse 9. קו kau signifies the line that a mason stretches out to build a layer of stones by. After one layer or course is placed, he raises the line and builds another; thus the building is by degrees regularly completed. This is the method of teaching children, giving them such information as their narrow capacities can receive; and thus the prophet dealt with the Israelites. See Kimchi in loc., and see a fine parallel passage, Hebrews 5:12-14, by which this may be well illustrated. My old MS. Bible translates oddly:— For sende efter sende, sende efter sende: Abide efter abiide, abide efter abiide: Lytyl ther, lytyl ther. Coverdale is also singular:— Commande that may be commanded; Byd that maye be bydden: Foorbyd that maye be forbydden; Kepe backe that maye be kepte backe: Here a litle, there a litle. Isaiah 28:12 This is the rest “This is the true rest”—The sense of this verse is: God had warned them by his prophets that their safety and security, their deliverance from their present calamities and from the apprehensions of still greater approaching, depended wholly on their trust in God, their faith and obedience; but they rejected this gracious warning with contempt and mockery. Isaiah 28:15 A covenant with death—To be in covenant with, is a kind of proverbial expression to denote perfect security from evil and mischief of any sort:— “For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field; And the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.” Job 5:23. “And I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field. And with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground.” Hosea 2:18. That is, none of these shall hurt them. But Lucan, speaking of the Psylli, whose peculiar property it was to be unhurt by the bite of serpents, with which their country abounded, comes still nearer to the expression of Isaiah in this place:— Gens unica terras Incolit a saevo serpentum innoxia morsu Marmaridae Psylli.— Pax illis cum morte data est. Pharsal. 9:891. “Of all who scorching Afric’s sun endure, None like the swarthy Psyllians are secure: With healing gifts and privileges graced, Well in the land of serpents were they placed: Truce with the dreadful tyrant death they have, And border safely on his realm the grave.” Rowe. We have made a covenant with death and with hell are we at agreement—עשינו חזה asinu chozeh, we have made a vision, we have had an interview, struck a bargain, and settled all preliminaries. So they had made a covenant with hell by diabolic sacrifice, כרתנו ברית carathnu beritth. “We have cut the covenant sacrifice;” they divided it for the contracting parties to pass between the separated victim; for the victim was split exactly down the middle, so that even the spinal marrow was exactly divided through its whole length; and being set opposite to each other, the contracting parties entered, one at the head part, the other at the feet; and, meeting in the center, took the covenant oath. Thus, it is intimated, these bad people made an agreement with שאול sheol, with demons, with whom they had an interview; i.e., meeting them in the covenant sacrifice! To such a pitch had the Israelitish idolatry reached at that time! Isaiah 28:16 (Clarke)

The Assyrians were some of the cruelest, evil, brutal people that ever lived; it was a horrifying thing to fall into their clutches…








DISCUSSION
1. Describe the “otherness” of God.?
2. How does God help us with this difficult problem?
3. What is our purpose (according to Solomon)?
4. Why is God’s punishment so harsh?
5. How does God demonstrate his love in both the old and new Testaments?
6. What led the drunken leaders of Judea to mock God?
7. Then what happened?