Introducing Biblical Theology

Sigurd Grindheim

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780567456878
• eBook ISBN: 9780567321053
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

How do the different books of the Christian bible contribute to telling the story of God's salvation in Jesus Christ? How can the diverse and sometimes confusing range of perspectives in the bible join together in one picture? Sigurd Grindheim shows students how this picture can be seen as that of the Triune God, the God who interacts. God makes human beings who enjoy a peaceful relationship with him. This relationship is broken because of sin, but God continues to reach out to human beings through covenants. Human failure to be faithful shows that God needs to intervene in a more direct way. In his son Jesus Christ, he comes to earth and brings reconciliation. Grindheim draws on insights from scholarship and tradition to answer the major questions and presents them in a highly accessible form, using examples, revision questions and charts. This book is written specifically for students at the start of courses in the Bible, Theology and Ministry, and for those searching for a deeper understanding of the theology of the Christian bible.

1

The God Who Interacts

Chapter Outline

God’s Name

A Holy God

To See God

God’s Presence

Only God

Father

God as Male

God as the Triune God

God and Evil

God’s Knowledge

Summary

The God of the Bible is the God who makes himself known to us. We do not meet him by searching within ourselves. He is a God who acts, and he is known through his actions. The first book of the Bible introduces him with the words: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1.1). The Bible presupposes that God is there. There is no need to argue that he exists.

The Bible does not use philosophical ideas to describe him. God is not a power, not an idea; he is a person. He interacts with the world, and we learn about who he is through his works and through the way he interacts.

God’s Name

God is a person who has a name. He revealed this name to Moses when he spoke to him from a burning bush. “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I AM has sent me to you.”’ God also said to Moses: “Say to the Israelites, ‘[Yahweh], the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation” (Exod. 3.14-15).

The Hebrew name Yahweh is translated “Lord” (in most English translations usually with capital letters: LORD). This translation is based on the way the name was read out loud in the Jewish tradition. When the Jews read the Bible in the synagogue and they came to the name Yahweh, they said “Adonai.” They did not want to pronounce God’s name because they considered it to be too holy to be pronounced. The Hebrew word “Adonai” means “Lord.”

Sometimes the name Yahweh is rendered Jehovah. When the Old Testament was first written down and copied, the writers only wrote with consonants (as they also do in modern Hebrew). They did not use vowels. When they added the vowels later, the scribes did not include the vowels for Yahweh. Instead, they wrote the vowels for the word Adonai, which was what they read out loud. Out of respect for the written text, they preserved the consonants for God’s name, YHWH, but the vowels were those from Adonai. Those who were unfamiliar with the Jewish practice would read the consonants of YHWH together with the vowels for Adonai, and it became Jehovah. This is the result of a misunderstanding. We know that the correct pronunciation of the name must have been Yahweh because there are many names in the Bible that are formed with God’s name. Two of these names are Jeremiah (Yahweh exalts) and Isaiah (Yahweh is salvation). These names end in - yah, and show us that God’s name should be pronounced Yahweh.

The name Yahweh is probably related to the Hebrew word for “I am” (ehyeh), and the phrase “I AM WHO I AM” is an explanation of God’s name Yahweh.

This name is puzzling; it both conceals and reveals. It conceals because God does not explain who he is. He is who he is. In itself, this name does not reveal anything, but it refers Moses and the Israelites to the works God will do. The works that he is about to do will reveal who he is.

God reveals his name to Moses right before he is about to show his might in Egypt. He will defeat Pharaoh and the Egyptian gods and set Israel free. In this way, he shows that he is God, not only over Israel but also over all the world. He is supreme over all other powers, both in the physical world and in the spiritual world. And he uses his power to save his people.

At the same time, the name “I AM” shows that God does not depend on anyone or anything else for his existence or for what he does. He is the only true God. This is how the prophet Isaiah explains God’s name: “I am [Yahweh], and there is no other; apart from me there is no God” (Isa. 45.5).

God is the one who always is. As Isaiah continues to explain, this means that he is eternal: “Who has done this and carried it through, calling forth the generations from the beginning? I, [Yahweh]—with the first of them and with the last—I am he” (Isa. 41.4). The book of Revelation develops the name “I AM” even further. God is “the Alpha and the Omega. . . who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1.8). He always was and he always will be. He always is.

But that God is “I AM” does not mean that he is a God in isolation. Yahweh is a name that emphasizes God’s relationship with his people. It is the name of the God who enters into covenant with his people. That God’s name is Yahweh means that he is a God who is reaching out to the people he created and establishes a relationship with them. It also means that he will go to great lengths to preserve and restore this relationship.

Table 1.1 Elaborations on the name Yahweh

The one who is I AM	God said to Moses: “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses: “Say to the Israelites, ‘[Yahweh], the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you’” (Exod. 3.14-15).
Only God	I am [Yahweh], and there is no other; apart from me there is no God (Isa. 45.5).
Eternal	I, [Yahweh]—with the first of them and with the last—I am he (Isa. 41.4). “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1.8).
Redeemer	I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am [Yahweh] your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians (Exod. 6.7).
The Covenant God	[Yahweh, Yahweh], the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation (Exod. 34.5-7).

When God prepared Moses for what he was going to do in Egypt, he told him: “I am [Yahweh]. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name [Yahweh] I did not make myself known to them” (Exod. 6.2-3). This statement is surprising to us because we find the name Yahweh (Lord) frequently in the Bible, even before the account in Exodus 6 (Gen. 2.4 etc.).

To understand what God means, we must consider the full significance of the verb “to make known.” That God made himself known by the name Yahweh did not simply mean that he taught Israel how to say a new word. In biblical language, the word “to know” often means to know by experience. When God makes himself known, it means that he lets the people experience who he is. He will let Israel know through experience that he is Yahweh.

The experience that God will give to Israel is that he liberates them from oppression and slavery in Egypt. To know God as Yahweh is to know him as deliverer, as savior and redeemer. It is to experience what he does when he uses his might to save his people (Exod. 6.6). The reason why God will do this is that he remembers his covenant (Exod. 6.4, 8). To know God as Yahweh is to know God as the one who enters into a relationship with his creatures and who spares no expense to preserve and restore that relationship. It is to know God as the one who proclaims: “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am [Yahweh] your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians” (Exod. 6.7).

Yahweh is the savior God of the covenant. It is his nature to show mercy to his people. He renewed his covenant with Israel even after the people had committed idolatry with the golden calf. “Then [Yahweh] came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, [Yahweh]. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘[Yahweh, Yahweh], the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation’” (Exod. 34.5-7).

A Holy God

The prophet Isaiah’s favorite name for God is “the holy one of Israel” (Isa. 1.4 etc.). Isaiah had learned about God’s holiness when God called him to go to Israel as a prophet. He had seen “the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory’” (Isa. 6.1-3).

Isaiah had seen God in his majesty, as the one exalted above all of creation and above all other powers. That God is holy means that he is separate from everything and everyone else. The heavenly beings, the seraphs, praised him as the one who is three times holy, a Hebrew way of saying that he is the most holy of all. Because God is holy, he fills the world with his glory, splendor, and abundance.

It is natural that God’s holiness and majesty inspires fear. When someone who is not holy enters into the presence of the holy one, it has terrible consequences. God explained to Moses that if anyone entered the Most Holy Place, they would die. Only the high priest could enter, once a year, with the right sacrifices that would make him acceptable in the Lord’s presence (Lev. 16.2). When Isaiah met God in his holiness, he was convinced that he was doomed (Isa. 6.5), but he was saved by the atoning sacrifice from the altar (6.6-7). Ezekiel also “fell facedown,” when he saw a vision “of the likeness of the glory of the Lord” (Ezek. 1.28).

To See God

Even though Isaiah saw the Lord, he did not give any description of what he looked like. He could only describe the things that surrounded God: the throne, the robe, the seraphs, and the smoke (Isa. 6.1-4). Isaiah saw the majesty of the Lord, but was unable to describe his appearance. In his vision “of the likeness of the glory of the Lord” (Ezek. 1.28), Ezekiel saw “a figure like that of a man” (1.26). But Ezekiel could not describe the features of this figure. The light was so overwhelming that all Ezekiel had to say was that “he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire” (1.27). When he revealed himself to Moses, God explained why: “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (Exod. 33.20). Moses was therefore only allowed to see God’s back (Exod. 33.23). Ever since then, the saints longed to see God’s face (Pss 11.7; 42.2).

This changed when Jesus came. In him, “all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Col. 2.9). In him, it is therefore possible to see God. “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (Jn 1.18 ESV; 1 Jn 3.2). In Jesus, we can see God as he truly is, for Jesus has been given God’s name, “the name that is above every name” (Phil. 2.9), Yahweh (ch. 8).

God’s Presence

The Bible refers to God as living in heaven (1 Kgs 8.49; Eccl. 5.2), but we must remember that this heaven is not a physical place. It must be understood spiritually. The biblical authors knew very well that God was too great to fit into the physical heaven (1 Kgs 8.27; 2 Chron. 6.18). When the Bible says that God dwells in heaven, the point is that he is much greater than those who live on earth (Isa. 57.15).

God is present everywhere (Jer. 23.24), and it is impossible to escape from his presence (Ps. 139.7-12). But the Bible distinguishes between different kinds of God’s presence. He was graciously present with the ark of the covenant in the tabernacle and the temple. Israel could worship him and pray to him, and he blessed and protected them (Exod. 20.24; 1 Kgs 8.37-40). This presence is a special privilege that should not be taken for granted (1 Sam. 4.3-11; Jer. 7.4). God can take it away (Ezek. 10.4, 18-19).

In the New Testament, God’s presence is in Jesus Christ, who is Immanuel, “God with us” (Mt. 1.23). The Gospel of Matthew focuses on Jesus’ own personal presence. He promises to be present with his disciples always and everywhere (Mt. 18.20; 28.20). In the Gospel of John, Jesus explains that both he and his Father will be present and make their home in Jesus’ disciples (Jn 14.23). Jesus’ disciples will also be in him (15.4-5). This presence takes place through the Holy Spirit, the Advocate (14.17).

Only God

The Bible teaches us that God is the only God. There may be other beings that are called “gods,” but they are powerless compared to God. In the book of Isaiah, God calls on the idols to “tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods. Do something, whether good or bad, so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear. But you are less than nothing and you can do nothing; those who choose you are detestable” (Isa. 41.23-24). At the time of the Old Testament, many people believed that there was one god for every nation or every country. But God makes it c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 The God Who Interacts
• 2 Obedient and Rebellious Subjects: Angels and Demons
• 3 Made for Fellowship: Human Beings as Created
• 4 Breaking the Relationship: Human Sin
• 5 God Makes It Personal: God’s Interaction with His People in the Old Testament
• 6 Mending the Relationship with God: Restitution for Sin in the Old Testament
• 7 A New Ruler and a New Order: The Old Testament Messianic Hope
• 8 God Came to Us: The New Testament Picture of Jesus
• 9 What Human Beings Could Not Do: The Work of God in Christ
• 10 Enjoying Favor with God: Salvation in the New Testament
• 11 The Most Intimate Fellowship: The Gift of the Holy Spirit
• 12 A Life Transformed: The New Life of the Believer
• 13 God’s New Community: The Church
• 14 The Covenant Rituals of the New Community: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
• 15 Perfect Union: The Last Things
• Scripture Index
• Index of Ancient Writings
• Subject Index
• eCopyright