Can you hear the echoes of Genesis 3 here? The serpent tempted Eve by closely parsing
her knowledge of what God had said and here Sarai does what everyone does, try
to find a reason for the problem as if God would not tell them. We have to remember, though, that many years
have passed since God first promised progeny, so it isn’t as though they haven’t
been patient. Sarai works out a solution
that is based in the serpent’s argument to Eve, “Did God really say…” Maybe it is only Abram who is to be involved
here as father and she is the barrier to fulfillment. Who couldn’t see this wasn’t going to turn
out well? Sarai accuses Hagar of acting “uppity”
after the tryst and conception, what a surprise. Sarai treats Hagar so badly thereafter that
she flees from her mistress. The Lord,
however, sees her and sends her back to submit to Sarai but with a promise that
her son will be the father of a multitude, unfortunately he won’t be a “good”
man, nor will that nation.
Jesus’ promise regarding the resurrection of the dead is
based on who has done good and who has done evil. Again, do you hear the echo of Genesis 3 and
the knowledge of good and evil? What does
it mean to do good? Good is a work of
God, all that He does is good. Truly that
is the only measure we have for good, is it what God intended. This ties back to Jesus’ claims regarding His
own work, He only does what He sees the Father doing, nothing else. He does nothing of His own initiative, only
what the Father shows Him. If we would
do good in this life we need to be a people deeply rooted in prayer and the
Word of God. Abiding in Him is the only
way we can know what good is and once we know what good is then we know that
anything else is at best not good. If we
seek always to know and do good then we will never settle for anything less,
much less evil.
The rich young man who approached Jesus asked a strange
question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The writer of Hebrews answers that question by
beginning where any question of inheritance must begin, with the death of the
one who is giving the inheritance. He begins
by talking about the necessity of death even under the old covenant. Even in that covenant the death of an animal
was required to maintain the covenant from the side of mankind. To obtain the promised forgiveness required a
death, just as the mercy Adam and Eve received required the death of an animal
to cover their nakedness. Again, we
return to the Platonic philosophy of earthly things being copies of the ideal
in heaven and in so doing we realize that the sacrifices needed to maintain the
earthly things are insufficient when we go higher to the ideal. Jesus’ sacrifice is sufficient to the
task. What does it mean though that He
appeared at the end of the ages?
Remember that the stories of Genesis are introduced with the formula “These
are the generations of…” Jesus is the
end of the story of the old covenant stories and the beginning of something
entirely new that will last through all eternity, therefore He indeed appeared
at the end of the ages in that sense.
When through the deep
waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
No comments:
Post a Comment