Unsettled Christianity

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December 6th, 2010

Thoughts on the Whore and Jesus

: Image via Wikipedia

This is from a short paper written for class. A rough draft of course…

חֶ֔סֶד was what Rahab extended and was what Rahab asked for. It wasn’t merely for the sparing of her and her family’s life, but ultimately for inclusion in YHWH’s covenant with Abraham (Genesis 24.12)

‘You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing חֶ֔סֶד to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. (Deuteronomy 5:9-10 NASB)

We must ask first of the importance of Rahab’s action. She was a prostitute, and it must be noticed first the connection between this story and the story as found in Numbers 25. Unlike this time, the spies most likely engaged in some sort of sexual license but remained faithful to the Covenant. Further, they didn’t give a false report, remained strong, and fulfilled God’s commands, reaping God’s rewards. And in this, when God’s covenant was fulfilled, a family of Gentiles were saved through the חֶ֔סֶד showed to Moses and promised to those who would obey God’s commands.

Further, the covenant between Rahab and the spies of Israel explicitly challenged Deuteronomy 7 in which YHWY thunders,

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, and when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. (Deuteronomy 7:1-2 NASB)

Further, verse three states that no intermarriage between the native inhabitants of Canaan and the Israelites could happen. (We see the enforcement of this principle in Ezra-Nehemiah when the purity of Israel demanded exclusion of all others.) However, in Matthew 1.5, the great Judge Boaz is said to be of a Gentile mother – Rahab. Granted, Boaz didn’t do any better, as he would take a wife of another banned race, the Moabitess Ruth. The inclusion of Rahab must stand as a testimony first to the influence of Deuteronomy in the Pharisaic Community of the Jewish Church and then as a monument to how Matthew interpreted Christ. I would contend that the Beautitudes as found in Matthew 5 corresponds to the Deuteronomic blessing and curse cycle. If this is so, then it may be possible that the ἐλεηθήσονται of Matthew 5.7 is referring to the covenant of Rahab (given that Joshua is of the Deuteronomic school) (cf PsSol 15.13).

Rahab is the example of extending the Covenant to Gentiles through their response to YHWH. Rahab’s speech is a precise reciting of the precepts of the Covenant which acknowledges Israel’s right to the Land, the Exodus story (important in Luke’s Gospel), and the supremacy of YHWH ‘in heaven above and on earth beneath’ (v11). By extending to the spies of Israel the חֶ֔סֶד of YHWH, she was in part re-enacting the Covenant itself. Because of this, it was her right to ask for it to be returned. By placing her in the genealogy of Christ, Matthew is calling attention to the New Covenant which the Gentiles were expected and welcomes to respond to. Further, it answers the racism of Ezra-Nehemiah in that Gentiles were include in the family line not only of the Davidic kings, but now of the Davidic Messiah.

Tags: new covenant, racism, Rahab
Posted in Deuteronomy, Joshua | 3 Comments »

March 2nd, 2009

The Death of Christ – Divorce and the New Covenant

Over the past few weeks, I have posted a few articles on Messianic Judaism, and have been met with some resistance from a variety of those that hold to that belief. Let me state that I see nothing wrong with Jews who convert to Christianity hold to their traditions, to a point, and that point is Grace; likewise, I see nothing wrong with Christians discovering the Jewishness of the Gospels, and the cultural context of Paul. There is a point, however, when this exploration turns to false doctrine and a false view of the interaction of the First Covenant and New Covenant. (As a primer to this discussion go here and then here .)

I want to tackle this issue, that the Law and First Covenant has been completed, in a manner consistent with a motif that underscores many biblical situations – Marriage and Divorce. We have to remember that many times, the relationship between God and Israel was pictured as marriage:

God’s union with the Jewish nation
Isaiah 54:5; Jeremiah 3:14; Hosea 2:19-20

Christ’s union with his church
Ephesians 5:23-24; Ephesians 5:32

We know that God is a righteous God, and will go to great lengths to prove that righteousness, even surpassing His own Law.

God had given Israel (the Ten Northern Tribes) a bill of divorce:

Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also. (Jeremiah 3:8 NKJV)

They had broken the marriage covenant by committing adultery with other Gods, but Judah refused to listen. We know that Israel was divorced from God, because they had been taken captive by other nations. (Jeremiah 3 is Israel’s bill of divorce and a call to her sister to repent). It one of the most dramatic passages in the Hebrew bible, God grieves openly for the divorce that is pending (reminding us, my friends, of the hurt that is produced by this destruction). Remember, loose the 1600 years of neo-platonic views of God, and remember that God is passable, suffering, and can suffer the hurt that we force upon Him.

Jeremiah 8.18-9.22 paints an image of God of a mourning King, broken hearted for a Queen that had departed from Him. God is declared to be the speaker of these 8.1 and 9.3, 6, 17, 22 of Jeremiah.

The Lord said to me,

“Tell them, ‘The Lord says, Don’t people get back up when they fall down? Don’t they turn around when they go the wrong way? Why, then, do these people of Jerusalem keep turning away from me in continual apostasy?

They hold fast to their mistaken beliefs. They refuse to turn back to me. I have listened to them very carefully, but they do not say what is right. None of them feels sorry for the evil he has done.

None of them asks, “What have I done wrong?”

All of them follow their own wayward course like a horse charging recklessly into battle. Even the stork knows when it is time to move on. And the turtledove, swallow, and crane follow the normal times for their migration.

But my people pay no heed to what I, the Lord, require of them.

How can you say, “We are wise! We have the law of the Lord”?

The truth is, those who teach it have used their writings to make it say what it does not really mean. Your wise men will be put to shame. They will be dumbfounded and be brought to judgment. Since they have rejected the word of the Lord, what wisdom do they really have?

So I will give their wives to other men and their fields to new owners.

That is because, from the least important to the most important of them, all of them are greedy for dishonest gain. Prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. They offer only superficial help for the hurt my dear people have suffered.

Then I said, “There is no cure for my grief! I am sick at heart. I hear my dear people crying out throughout the length and breadth of the land.

They are crying,

‘The Lord is in Zion, isn’t he? Her divine King is still there, isn’t he?’

They cry, ‘Harvest time has come and gone, and the summer is over, and still we have not been delivered.’

My heart is crushed because my dear people are being crushed. I go about crying and grieving. I am overwhelmed with dismay. There is still healing lotion available in Gilead, isn’t there? There are still doctors there, aren’t there? Why then have my dear people not been restored to health?

We see an image not merely of separation, but of Divorce, not of Israel, but of Judah. Paul admits that the divorce did happen,

For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
(Romans 11:15 NET)

We know that God has never let down on one of His promises, and further, we know that Judah was preserved in some form until Christ came, because of the prophecy given by Jacob concerning his sons.

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes; And to Him shall be the obedience of the people. (Genesis 49:10 NKJV)

The divorce of Judah did not occur until Christ, and more specifically, until Calvary. I saw this, because I draw from Paul this,

A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 7:39 NKJV)

Because of the death of the Husband, the wife (Israel-Judah) was freed from the marriage (Torah); because of the death of the Will-maker, there was a New Covenant put into place:

For where there is a last will, it is necessary for the death of the will-maker. For the last will is valid over dead people, since it never in force while the will-maker lives. Therefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. (Hebrews 9:16-18 CTV-NT)

Because of this, we are now His people who were not His people,

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. (1 Peter 2:9-10 NKJV)

God put away Israel in a divorce during the Assyrian Exile, and because Judah sought to follow her sister, God began to put her away as well, but because a simple divorce would not do, the Husband died annulling the marriage contract and creating a new one.

Discussion?