Galatians #6

GALATIANS # 6
HISTORY
An overview (5)
7/5/10

The automatic reaction to any supernatural event, “miracle”, is mystical – emotional not intellectual. This is the primary explanation of the Israelites so quickly swinging from belief –

Exodus 14:31 ( KJV ) And Israel saw that great work which the LORD did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD, and his servant Moses

– to unbelief, a complete turning away to golden calves, etc., astonishingly extreme turning away in some cases:
Numbers 14:1-12 ( KJV )
And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.
And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!
And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt?
And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.
Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.
And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes:
And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land.
If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.
Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.
But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel.
And the LORD said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have showed among them?
I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.

This all took place in a very short period of time, probably less than a couple of years passed between the Israelites “believed the Lord” (Exodus 14: 31) and then all the congregation “bade”

( H559 אָמַר ʼâmar aw-mar' A primitive root; to say (used with great latitude):—answer, appoint, avouch, bid, boast self, call, certify, challenge, charge, + (at the, give) command (ment), commune, consider, declare, demand, X desire, determine, X expressly, X indeed, X intend, name, X plainly, promise, publish, report, require, say, speak (against, of), X still, X suppose, talk, tell, term, X that is, X think, use [speech], utter, X verily, X yet.)

to kill both Moses and Aaron and return to Egypt (Numbers 14: 10)!
After all the miracles in Egypt; after being freed as foretold; after crossing the Red Sea and the pharaoh’s army was destroyed; after the visible pillar of fire and column of cloud led them; after their having witnessed the death of the worst of the worshipers of the golden calf and the death of the usurpers, and quail eaters, etc; after all the miracles which had preserved them…after all this, they still don’t trust God; they rebel and want to kill Moses and return to slavery!

Why?

All that we have studied up to here has demonstrated the shallowness of many believer’s conviction, based only on emotion, even His chosen people, even to this very day: without a solid knowledge of God belief is inevitably founded on emotion (even Christian) with little or no intellect engaged; when a miracle happens we humans are enthralled by it and worship/fear God – until the emotion wears off - and we return to our “normal” existence, wandering away to again worshiping the creation instead of the creator.

God is perfect in every conceivable nuance of meaning of “perfect.” With his revelation of the law in His ongoing, growing, revelation of Himself, He revealed that He is absolutely just, absolutely pure, absolutely perfect and absolutely necessary. When we humans find ourselves dealing with absolutes coming from God we have a bit of a problem accepting/comprehending the concept: we often either harden our hearts, or, occasionally, are awe stricken and rejoice when we brush up against what some describe the “otherness” of God.

Karl Barth discusses the impossibility of knowing God in any way as a result of this “otherness, except for what he reveals of Himself, in his book, “The Epistle to the Romans”:

“… [Paul] appeals only to the authority of God. This is the ground of his authority. There is no other.
Paul is authorized to deliver - the Gospel of God. He is commissioned to hand over to humanity something quite new and unprecedented, joyful and good – the Truth of God. Yes, precisely – of God! The gospel is not a religious to inform humanity of their divinity, or to tell them how they can become divine. The gospel proclaims a God utterly distinct from humanity. Salvation comes to them from Him, and because they are, as human beings incapable of knowing Him, they have no right to claim anything from Him. The Gospel is not one thing in the midst of other things, to be directly apprehended and comprehended. The Gospel is the Word of the Primal Origin of all things, the Word which, since it is ever new, must ever be received with renewed fear and trembling…
Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the Gospel and the meaning of history. In this name two worlds meet and go apart, two planes intersect, the one known and the other unknown. The known plane is God’s creation, fallen out of its union with Him, and therefore the world of the “flesh” needing redemption. The world of humans, and of time, and of things – our world. This known plane is intersected by another plane that is unknown – the world of the Father, of the Primal Creation, and of the final redemption. The relation between us and God, between this world and His world, presses for recognition, but the line of intersection is not self-evident. The point on the line of intersection at which the relation becomes observable and observed is Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, the historical Jesus.
To comprehend this intersection both intellect and emotion must be engaged.
Mysticism (emotion) is an integral component of knowing God, but alone leads to a shallow religiosity, a disaster; however, over intellectualization can be just as dangerous, just as disastrous, a balance must be maintained. God tells us to:
Matthew 22:37 ( KJV )
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
(Mind: G1271
διάνοια dianoia dee-an'-oy-ah From G1223 and G3563; deep thought, properly the faculty (mind or its disposition), by implication its exercise:—imagination, mind, understanding)
This balance between intellect/feeling (heart/mind/soul) can only be achieved by knowing God: that can only come about through our study of God’s revelation of Himself; we are only able to “know” God with our minds, by sincere study (Hebrews 11:6 ( KJV ) But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him ; John 5:39 ( KJV ) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. Etc.) of His “verbal” revelation of Himself to us
In his book “God Has Spoken,” J. I. Packer, wonderfully describes God’s revelation of Himself:
“…What is revelation? From one standpoint it is God’s act, from another his gift. From both standpoints it is correlative to man’s knowledge of God, as on the one hand an experience and on the other a possession .As God’s act, revelation is the personal self-disclosure whereby He brings us actively and experientially to know Him as our own God and Saviour. As God’s gift, revelation is the knowledge about Himself which He gives us as a means to this end. Revelation as God’s act takes place through the bestowing of revelation as God’s gift; the first sense of the word thus comprehends the second. Accordingly, revelation in the narrower sense ought always to be studied in the setting of revelation in the broader sense.
How does God reveal what has to be revealed in order that we may know Him? By verbal communication from himself. Without this, revelation in the full and saving sense cannot take place at all. For no public historical happening, as such ( an exodus, a conquest, a captivity, a crucifixion, an empty tomb), can reveal God apart from an accompanying word from God to explain it, or a prior promise which it seems to confirm or fulfill. Revelation in its basic form is thus of necessity propositional; God reveals Himself by telling us about Himself, and what He is doing in His world. The statement in Hebrews 1:1, that in Old Testament days God spoke “in divers manners,” reminds us of the remarkable variety of means whereby, according to the record, God’s communications were on occasion given: theophanies, angelic announcements, an audible voice from heaven (Exodus 19: 9, Matthew 3: 17, 2Peter 1: 17), visions, dreams, signs…as well as the more organic type of inspiration, whereby the Spirit of God so controlled the reflective operations of men’s minds as to lead them to a right judgment in all things. But in every case the disclosures introduced, or conveyed, or confirmed, by these means were propositional in substance and verbal in form.
Why does God reveal himself to us? Because, as we saw, He who made us rational beings wants, in His love, to have us as His friends; and He addresses His words to us – statements, commands, promises – as a means of sharing His thoughts with us and so making that personal self-disclosure which friendship presupposes, and without which it cannot exist.
What is the content of God’s revelation? This is determined primarily by our present plight as sinners. Though we have lapsed into ignorance of God and a godless way of life, god has not abandoned his purpose to have us as His friends; instead, He has resolved in His love to rescue us from sin and restore us to Himself. His plan for doing this was to make Himself known to us as our Redeemer and Re-creator, through the incarnation, death, resurrection and reign of His Son. The working out of this plan required a long series of preparatory events, starting with the promise to the woman’s seed (Genesis 3: 15) and spanning the whole of Old Testament history. Also it required a mass of concurrent verbal instruction, predicting each item in the series before it came and applying its lesson in retrospect, so that at each stage men might understand the unfolding history of salvation, hope in the promise of its full accomplishment, and learn what manner of person they, as objects of grace, ought to be. Thus the history of salvation (the acts of God) took place in the context of the history of revelation (the oracles of God). (Mc Grath)

With the limited extent that God had revealed himself up to the time of the Israelites proposing to kill Moses and Aaron and return to slavery, it was not un-likely, in fact it was very probable, that the Israelites worship of God would automatically be primarily mystical – emotional - and as such prone to serious “wavering”.










DISCUSSION
1. What is the normal reaction to a miracle?
2. Why did the Israelites “waver”?
3. How was their life different after receiving the Law?
4. What is “the greatest commandment”?
5. By what means does mankind know God?
6. What is the purpose of revelation?
7. How does karl Barth describe how Jesus Christ our Lord fits in to all this?
8. How does J. I. Packer describe the content of revelation
9. How does Packer describe the process of revelation?
10. How does Packer describe the role of Jesus?