Matthew 28: Some Doubted

It is no great concern to us that some of the disciples doubted when they saw the resurrected Jesus on that mountain in Galilee. And yet it is of great concern when people outside the church doubt or disbelieve. That's what's called a double standard, and a damnable one! Somehow it's okay for the "in group" to disbelieve, but those on the outs "will die and go to hell!" No, rather, it's serious, and a great sin, no, the symptom of THE GREATEST sin, when we disbelieve or doubt, whether we are seminary students or people who have never lives darkened a church door. But notice, is the wrath of the Lord on those who disbelieve? Does the ground give way underneath them? No, not because their sins and troubles and diseases are not great, but because God is so good.
When Jacob disbelieved that his son Joseph was alive, what did God do? Did God, rain down fire and brimstone on the despairing, faithless Jacob, Jacob whose life was filled with hard knocks, wanderings and travails, but who was also not a blameless man, but a trader "with false balances," a trickster and in his faithlessness and lack of confidence, even a thief in his youth? The answer is no. Instead, God overwhelms Jacob's despair and faithlessness. When Jacob heard Joseph's message, the words that Joseph meant especially for his longsuffering father, when Jacob saw the rich caravan that Joseph had sent for him, Jacob's spirit revived and he says, "It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive; I will go and see him before I die."

In other words, we must not say, "those who disbelieve or doubt will go to hell." That's like saying in the moment before his spirits revived "Jacob will die in despair not knowing the grace of God who brings his beloved son back to him." It is, at the very least, short-sighted. We CAN say, quoting Revelation 21 that there will be none of the "cowardly, the faithless, the polluted etc.," in the New Jerusalem. But we cannot say, "those who disbelieve will go to hell" Why? because we do not know what the next movement by God will be. God is free to overwhelm the despairing and hopeless with good news. God is both willing and able to overwhelm all faithlessness, just as did with Jacob, just as he did with the doubting disciples. Not even death can limit the power of God. The gates of hell crumple before Jesus. Therefore, let's leave it up to God's mercy and goodness, not presuming to know the mind of the Lord, remembering that his thoughts and plans are very different from our own, giving thanks for the gift of belief, that sure sight, but also remembering that even "when we are faithless God is faithful, for he cannot deny himself."

Matthew 9:9 No Puppets

Jesus says to Matthew the tax collector, "Follow me." Is Matthew a sort of puppet? Jesus pulling the strings and Matthew rising and following him? I asked myself about light at the very beginning. Is light a kind of puppet, God flips the switch and voila? My father pointed out to me that this question becomes clearer when we consider the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. We must ask ourselves, is Jesus, as pictured by Isaiah in the above mentioned chapter, a puppet? The answer is no, of course. Isaiah does not want to get across to us that Jesus is a marionette jerked around on strings. Instead the picture we get is one of freedom. Just before Jesus commands Matthew "Follow me," he says to the paralytic, "Rise and walk." The Bible is not presenting a picture of the paralytic as a puppet but rather as a healed man, freed, in fact, from his long infirmity. In the same way, Matthew is now a free man when he rises to follow Jesus. It may be that light is made free when God commands it.

The usual idea about freedom is that free will is the ability to say, yes or no. Bonhoeffer contradicts this when he says that our freedom is only found in obedience to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Our imprisonment and slavery is found in disobedience to God. Like Barth who corrected Rousseau's "I think therefore I am" by saying "I am thought on by God, therefore I am," Bonhoeffer corrects and tempers our philosophy of freedom.

Our ideas about freedom, like every other philosophy, are tempered, guided and turned on their heads by the Bible.

Little Hint on the Parable of the Vineyard

Notice in Matthew's parable of the vineyard that the householder calls one of the grumbling workers "Friend." The Lord of the vineyard is serious about that and it is the key to understanding the whole parable. In other words, the grumbling workers who have borne the heat and the burden of the day have MISUNDERSTOOD their position. They are not merely outsiders, hired workers only concerned about their pay, they are insiders and friends. They have forgotten or missed the fact that the householder has been worker right alongside of them and that his concerns are theirs, his riches, theirs, his soul, one with their own.

Lack of Compassion?

Morris Adler writes that although "Noah was a righteous man" who deserves to be in the circle of the great, "there was a fatal flaw in Noah and he did not become the father of a new religion, a new faith, and a new community. He lacked compassion...nowhere did Noah show a feeling of sadness and pathos that an entire generation was to be lost, and the world destroyed."

It occurs to me that I have heard this thought, or one like it, elsewhere. There is a tradition to mourn over the Egyptians who perished in the Red Sea. The Bible itself has no such thought.

Personally, I don't mourn over the Egyptians. Why? Good question! I notice that God has enemies throughout the scriptures. In the beginning, the darkness was separated from the light. God saw the light was good but the darkness is not called "good." With God where there is a yes, there is always a no. God says yes to light and no to darkness, he makes his judgment. He said no to the Egyptians, he said no to the people of Noah's day. Through this "no" the children of Israel were saved and I am not sorry about that. By extension, Noah was saved from his generation by the "no" of God. To say that I mourn for the Egyptians or for those of Noah's generation is to forsake God's yes to life.

The people of Noah's day are considered in the new testament to be the worst of all sinners but Peter tells us that Jesus went preached to them to these "spirits in prison." We are also reminded that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Lord and his church.

Jesus weeps over the dead Lazarus but it is not said that he weeps over the people destroyed in the flood. But this isn't to say that there is no resurrection of the dead, this is not to say that there is no repentance and turning even in hell itself. But there is always a no, where there is a yes. Not everyone will be saved when Jesus comes again, Hell will not be empty. We know that there will be several denizens of the lake of fire, the devil, the beast and the false prophet. But will the Egyptians be in that lake, will even Noah's generation be there?

Not a Patriarchy, a Noaharchy

My dad commented to me a few days ago that the Bible is not a patriarchy. Indeed we see by Genesis chapter 10, that all the patriarchs have been killed off. Noah and his sons and his sons wives remain, but not because God has befriended a father, but because God had one friend in all the earth, that was Noah. What do we call this thing? Aonerighteousmaninthewholeeartharchy? Do we call it a God'sonefriendarchy? Onelonelyguyarchy? Onelittlefamilyarchy?

Genesis 9: Maybe Noah Needed A Drink!

In Elie Wiesel's book, Sages and Dreamers (p.33). Wiesel seems to suggest that Noah "haunted by his memories...escapes into drink and sleep." It may be my imagination but Wiesel seems to have some sympathy for this. As do I. We are told that majority opinion of the rabbis is that Noah errred in planting the vineyard, drinking the wine, getting drunk and all that. I wonder if Proverbs is commenting then in favor of the minority opinion: "Give strong drink to the hapless and wine to the embittered. Let them drink and forget their poverty and put their troubles out of mind." If a man comes to me from the battlefield, straight from the bowels of hell, I hope that I would have decency to pour him a stiff drink if need be. Elie Wiesel knows something about that kind of hell. An army chaplain needs not only food on hand but a private bottle of whiskey for emergencies; to my mind, an hour's rest--sweet nothingness, to the trembling soldier still in the depths of the nightmare is not to much to ask.

Genesis 6: Noah and Moses

Elie Wiesel, in his book "Sages and Dreamers" sums it up this way, with the flood, God was "starting all over, another draft." God preserves Noah and his family but abandons the rest of creation to the flood. It's interesting to me then that the children of Israel refuse to be abandoned, they cry out to God, they put off all their jewelry in mourning, they plead...and...their cause is upheld by the Lord. They are original squeaky wheel that gets the grease. Israel had sinned. God, who seems to have had it up to here with them, proposes that a glorious angel will lead them to the Promised Land...instead of him. He's had enough. The people respond with a might outcry; ice cream is no substitute for true love and an angel, however glorious, is no substitute for God.
Something has changed between Noah and Moses, and the Bible wants to let us in on it. Not only will Israel not be abandoned by God, they don't even have to accept a beautiful substitute. God's faithfulness seems to be coming into sharper and sharper focus, its glory is growing. We will see the glory of his faithfulness and love most in his son, Jesus Anointed, whom he sends because he refuses to abandon the world ("God so loved the world"). Nor will he send a substitute ("God saw that there was no man...he himself brought the victory." Is. 59:16), instead "the word became flesh and tented among us."

Genesis 5: Cursed Soil

Elie Wiesel notes in his book, "Sages and Dreamers(p. 20) that in Noah's time (ten generations from Adam) the ground is still under a curse. Wiesel correctly observes that this, by all rights, should not be; the sons are not to be punished for the sins of the fathers. In Romans chapter 5 Paul also observes much the same thing, "nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses." Paul is saying that death reigned in these days in order that the generations from Adam to Noah might be wakened from the dead by Jesus Anointed. Death did not reign because of "original sin" or any notion of sin being passed on like a disease down from Adam. Rather, death reigned (prior to the law) in order that death might be thoroughly overcome by grace. This thought is not unprecedented. Consider Micah 5 and the rabbinical commentary on its first few verses (The Jewish Study Bible:Jewish Publication Society, p.1213). The jist is that great hardship ("birthpangs") precede the Messiah. Some of the rabbis preferred not to see the Messiah because of the hardships that would that would come before the advent of the Anointed One.

The death that reigned from Adam to Moses are part of these birthpangs.

Sin is not an inescapable, inevitable disease to Paul but an inexplicable fact that has plagued the generations.

Genesis 6: Chamas

Why does the Bible leave the sin of the people shrouded in mystery? We know they are guilty of "chamas," lawlessness or violence, but what are there particular sins. And yet we know from the New Testament, that the people of Noah's time were the worst of the worst.
It's interesting that neither are the sins of Canaanites catalogued. We have reports here and there of child sacrifice and prostitution but no detailed analysis. Is it possible that the Bible does not want to introduce such horrors to its pages?

Robert Alter

I love Robert Alter's note, commenting on this place in Genesis, (Gensis: Translation and Commentary p.28 note 5) "Man's evil heart is pointedly meant to contrast to God's grieving heart (the same Hebrew word) in the next verse." The same idea comes out in Jeremiah 9, not only that God grieves, but also the contrast between God and man..."Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories, glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices mercy, justice and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight." God's practices are in sharp contrast to man who "proceeds from evil to evil...heaping oppression upon oppression and deceit up on deceit and "refuses to know me, says the Lord."

It Grieved Him to His Heart: Genesis 6:6

It is only relatively recently that theology has been able to cast off some of its philosophic shackles and admitted the plain sense of the text: God grieves. We see this even more dramatically in Jeremiah 9 where God says "O that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and nigh for the slain of the daughter of my people!" It continues, " O that I had in the desert a wayfarers lodging place that I might leave my people and go away from them." It has been justly asked whether the speaker is the prophet or God himself, and in my opinion, here in Jeremiah, it could be either. However, when we come to the gospels, we see Jesus going off into the desert for a time alone after the death of the John the Baptist at the corrupt hands of Herod. In other words, Jesus Jehovah fulfills this word in Jeremiah. When he goes off into the desert, it is to weep for the slain, it to grieve for the wickedness of his people.

Comment on "Genesis 3: Grace"

My thinking has come along on this topic since February. In Mark chapter 12 we read Jesus' rebuke of the Saduccees, "And touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, 'I am the god of Abraham and the god of Isaac and the god of Jacob.'" Jesus then rounds out his rebuke with these words, "He is not the god of the dead but the god of the living. Ye greatly err."
These days I think that living has to do with rememberance. Specifically it has to do with GOD remembering you. Here's psalm 88 on this subject with the especially pertinent verse in capitals: "I am counted with those who go down to the Pit; I have been like a feeble man, free among the dead, as pierced ones lying in the grave, WHOM YOU REMEMBER NO MORE, yea by your hand they are cut off." In Exodus 17 we read about the Amalekites whom God means to wipe from the face of the earth, "I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." In other words, if there is no remembrance of you, if God does not remember you, you are dead and gone.
But has God forgotten Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? No, he is their God, he is their savior, he remembers them. Therefore they are alive and praising God.
Descartes said "I think therefore I am." But Karl Barth corrected this by saying, "I am thought on by God therefore I am." God is thinking on, and is faithful in his thinking on and remembering of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." We know that Abraham's blessing is for all the nations. Through Jesus Anointed the blessing of life from the dead is for us all.

Genesis 6

"The sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful. And they took wives fro themselves from all those whom they chose. And Jehovah said, "My spirit shall not always vindicate man; in their erring he is flesh."

After talking with my Dad on the phone the other day, he said that flesh enters into the picture with wives. Adam had said, "this at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." I would concur, however, I also wonder if flesh does not enter in with "erring." Flesh, remember, is that which is not forever, that which is temporary. Spirit on the other hand lasts forever. My Dad suggested a picture in which the mysterious "sons of God" were taking many many wives, not just one or two like Lamech or Abraham, but something like the Mormons who take many many wives, and the resulting confusion and sin that follows on this foolish course. Or think of Solomon who had a thousand wives and was led into idolatry. Solomon of all men! He who was called "Jedediah" or "beloved" of God.
In other words, God sees the sons of God with their thousand wives per and he sees all the foolishness and sins of the flesh resulting from all this indiscriminate marrying... and he steps back from man. No more 900 year life spans, 120 years and that's it. God is just not going to work as hard in this relationship. He will not vindicate and support the failing flesh of man anymore.

It is a preface of things to come, namely, the flood.

Correction to Previous Post

The word "son" is not present in Genesis chapter 5 nor is it present in Luke 3:38. In the former place the text says that Adam begot Seth and in the later place it reads "Adam of God." "Son" IS a very evocative word in the Bible and Luke and the writer(s) of Genesis probably have good reason for avoiding the term.
Is the Bible showing us in Genesis 5 that the relationship between Adam and Seth is the same as the relationship between Adam and God? Are we meant to compare the two?

Gentile Arrogance

I realize my question about the genealogies and lists of the Bible (see Ezra 2) are rooted in that arrogance that Paul warned about in Romans. Consider the list in Ezra, this is a survivor list. It is a list of the people moved by the spirit to rebuild Jerusalem. The people on the list are links to the past and the foundation of the future. Moreover, imagine how it feels for a Jewish person of the past or the present to read this list. Wouldn't he be thinking something like: "God knows the names of my ancestors, he has named them and counted them, from this list I am come." "God counted and named the survivors and the builders of Jerusalem and he knows my name, I am counted, I am loved." "God was faithful to my ancestors, bringing them home, he will be faithful to me." This is the way to think about such lists and genealogies.

We Goyim need to remember what Paul teaches, namely, that we have been brought to the table of salvation by grace. We have been brought to a Jewish table, "salvation comes from the Jews" as Jesus said. To not acknowledge this is to show the most abject blindness. It shows that we do not understand the Bible, which we Protestants at least, claim to have such an affection for.

The genealogy of Genesis 5, does all the above, but it further confirms the link of all of humanity, Jews and Gentiles, to Adam and to God. All of us can count God as our father. What does Paul say in Ephesians 3? "To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Anointed and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things...For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named."

What Are Genealogies?

Just a question, what is God saying to us throught these genealogies that are scattered in so many places throughout the Bible? When I look at Ezra 2, I wonder if I am not seeing something like a survivors list. In Matthew and Luke the genealogies are important because they link Jesus with the royal house of David for one thing. ( An aside: Why wasn't the question of descent from David the first question put to Sabbatai Zevi and other false messiahs?) But these explanations aren't enough. What is God saying through these lists?

Genesis 5: A Son in His Own Likeness

"This is the book of the generation of Adam. When God created man he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them and blessed them and named them Adam when they were created. When Adam had lived a hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth."

It's interesting to me that it is Adam who names Seth. Eve had named Cain, their first son. The impression I get from this passage is that Seth is very much his father's boy, and the apple of his eye " he became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named his Seth." Seth is the "spittin' image" of his papa.

All this throws a new light on what it means for Adam to be in the likeness and image of God. This passage wants us to think again about what it means that Adam was in the image and likeness of God.

In past centuries, the idea of the "image of God" has had to carry around with it all sorts of ideological freight. We are "in the image of God" when we love. No, other scholars have said in my hearing, we are in the image of God when we create. But I prefer the simpler explanation of one scholar who says that Adam looked like God. That's it. Adam looked a lot like God, just as Seth looked a lot like Adam.

First, the use of the words "image" and "likeness" refer to statues, idols, pictures. God created a walking, talking, breathing statue of himself when he created Adam. What a slap in the face this would be to all idolatry. Later, the Israelites, in imitation of their neighbors, would make idols of silver and gold. But these pale in comparison to the "real" statue that God has made in Adam. In others words we are the real deal, not those gold and silver statuettes that can't move or talk or breathe. Idols are beneath our dignity to create. Put it another way, wouldn't the reader of Genesis conclude something like: We are what is beautiful, what God delights in, not those pieces of scrap metal.

But there is something more that this passage in Genesis 5 suggests to me and that is that just as Seth was the his daddy's boy, the apple of Adam's eye, so we are to conclude that Adam was his daddy's boy, the apple of God's eye, as we read in Luke 3:37, "Adam, the son of God."

To call someone "son"---that alone carries heavy connotations in the Bible. "Son" means beloved so many times in the Bible. Witness David mourning for Absolom, " O my son! Absolom! My son, my son!" Who can hear these words and not be moved by such a loss and such a love.

Cain and Abel

Cain said to his brother, "Let us go into the field" and this was where Cain would murder Abel. We see later in Genesis that before Joseph is thrown into a pit and sold by his brothers he was wandering in a field. But in I Samuel this trend seems to be reversed. Jonathan meets David in a field and instead of violence, they confirm their covenant. For me as I read this passage it is a strangely touching moment. In the house of David and Saul we see a reversal of that violence between brothers. Jonathan has the perfect opportunity to betray his friend, his father Saul would at first have been pleased before he came to his senses. But my larger question is this, does the royal house of David reverse Cain and Abel? Is the royal house of David the answer to the murder. Jesus Anointed is of this royal house, doesn't he command his disciples to love one another. And isn't there a field in the New Testament as well, that field where Judas hangs himself? A field of blood, a field purchased with silver? In Jeremiah we see this field again, before the exile God tells his prophet to buy a field. Buy a field? What a real estate market! Why would anyone by a field when the neighborhood will be brambles in the near future? But God tells Jeremiah to buy a field for hope, a sure and certain hope that the Jewish people would return. Akel dama is the field where Judas dies, a field of blood, but whose blood? Isn't it really the blood of the lamb? Isn't there hope for Judas too because of this blood which covers over the sins of murderers and suicides? I wonder if the field in the New Testament is not also a field of hope. God reconciling us to himself while we were yet enemies. Isn't Jesus' blood for the murderers and the suicides and the unbelievers and the cowards? God reconciling Judas with his brother Jesus, God reconciling brothers because unity among brothers is like fragrant oil on the head of Aaron, dripping down the collar of his robes, like the dew on Mount Hermon.

Cain and Abel

Cain's mark is not sign of God's displeasure. Quite the opposite, it is a mark of protection and blessing. It puts a stop to the cycle of violence. Some of the rabbis say that God gave it to Cain in order that he might repent (see Paul's letter to the Romans "God's goodness leads to our repentance"). It is interesting that Jesus' death on a cross also stops "the cycle of violence." Jesus tells his disciples on the night that he is betrayed, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another." The cross is for our peace, not only that of the disciples but also the Judaean officials and the gentile Romans who crucified him. The cruel indifference of Pilate, the envy of the Judaean leaders, all this, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good" as Joseph tells his brothers after being reunited with them. Joseph's brothers meant it for evil, but God meant it for their saving and the saving of all Israel, so it is with Jesus Anointed, "all Israel will be saved; as it is written, 'The deliverer shall come from Zion and he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.'"

The Tree of Life

God does not destroy the tree of life, he does not uproot it or carry it away, instead he leaves it be, guarding the way with a cherubim and a flaming sword. This shows that God has not given up on eternal life. From the beginning God means man to live forever and as "it was in the beginning, so it is now and ever shall be." There is no shadow of turning with the father of lights, giving good gifts from heaven to his children. Jesus Anointed ("Anointed" is simply translating Christ into English) is the way to eternal life. My dad and I were discussing just the other day the recognition that death is over and done with, according to the gospels and letters, death is in a real sense, behind us now. Some in the early church were actually saying that the resurrection from the dead had already occurred. They go over the mark in thinking this but clearly the apostles are teaching that "it is finished" and that God's salvation means death to death, it means that the grave is in the grave now, all that is past and we are become new in Jesus Anointed. Paul's people overdo a bit on this idea, but they've got it right essentially.