BibleProject - Experiencing God Through Humans - God E6

Episode Date: August 27, 2018

In part 1 (0-20:20), Tim shares a insight from biblical scholar Richard Baukham. Baukham outlines the differences between ancient Judiasm and other ancient religions of that time period. Specifically a “Binary view” vs. a “gradient view” of reality. A “gradient view” can be characterized as: polytheistic worldviews (like Israel’s ancient neighbors, and the Greek and Roman world) draw distinctions of degree between the most powerful divine being and other divine beings and humans. A “binary view” can be characterized, by looking at this quote from Richard Baukman “Monotheism understands the uniqueness of the one God in terms of an absolute difference in kind from all other reality. We could call it ‘transcendent uniqueness… understanding the uniqueness of the God of Israel as that of the one Creator of all things and the one sovereign Ruler of all things. In ancient Judaism, this binary distinction between their God and all other reality was observed and promoted by monolotry -- their worship and allegiance and prayers were offered only to the one God of Israel. In a gradient worldview, many beings are accorded honor, to the degree appropriate to their rank on the cosmic scale. Judaism turned their monolotry into a powerful symbol of exclusive monotheism.” -- Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 109. Why is this important? Because a binary view of reality eventually sets the stage for Israel’s belief that God can be both transcendent and personally knowable. And the biblical authors paint a picture of God who can be relatable to the world most often through a human mediator, but at the same time can be utterly unknowable. Tim says that these overarching thoughts set the stage for Christian beliefs like the incarnation and the trinity. In part 2 (20:20-25:20), Tim outlines “God’s complex relationship with the world”. When you pick up the Bible you first notice that God is portrayed as very relatable, with human like qualities. In Genesis, God is portrayed as walking around the garden. Other times, God’s attributes becomes personified, his wisdom, his justice etc all have stories where they act as a character. In part 3 (25:20-40:00), Tim outlines portrayals of God through humans. When Genesis starts, God self limits himself by willingly wanting to partner with humans who are made in his image and commissioned to rule the world on his behalf. What’s the problem with that? Humans rebel. But God continues to work through humans who he uses to accomplish his purposes. The first person that is a great example of this is Moses. When God calls Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3, God says he will deliver Israel out of Egypt, but then he tells Moses to go do it. Tim says this is a good example, that most stories in the Bible show God acting through a person, or a mediator and its actually very rare to see God doing something without a mediator. In part 4 (40:00-end), Tim expands on this point by illustrating the biblical theme of “God’s outstretched arm”. Where does this image come from? Does God actually have an arm? Tim says this theme starts in the plagues in Egypt (Exodus 7). “Then Yahweh said to Moses… “Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he is going out to the water, stand on the bank and take in your hand the staff… and say “Thus says Yahweh the God of the Hebrews, ‘By this you will know that I am Yahweh, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile and it will turn to blood.’ Then Moses did as Yahweh commanded… he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile. Tim says the point is Moses arm with the staff = Yahweh’s arm. Moses’ physical actions become merged with Yahweh’s actions. Moses is not God. Moses is an image of God. Jon says that this is really interesting because it seems that Moses is becoming conformed to the image of God, their seems to be a fusion of God and Moses. It makes Moses truly human and brings justice and life for the Israelite slaves in Egypt. Thank you to all our supporters! Show Resources: Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel. Show Produced By: Dan Gummel. Jon Collins. Matthew Halbert Howen Show Music: He’s Always There - Tae the Producer Eden - Tae the Producer Another Chance - Tae the Producer Defender Instrumental - Rosasharn Music

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

This is John from the Bible Project. We've been going through a series on this podcast about the complex identity of God in the Bible. If you've been following along, you've heard us talk about how the word for God in the Bible is the word Elohim and how the God of the Bible isn't the only character referred to as an Elohim. In fact, there's many spiritual beings in the Bible referred to as Elohim. Most human cultures or most of human history have had a gradient view of reality.

Namely, there are different grades of powerful beings in the universe. And so, at the top is usually a particular deity or a handful of them, but then there's deities all the way down. So this is the world in which the Bible comes into existence. And in this world, the gods are always fighting to prove who's the top dog. You can climb the ranks of the god pile, as it were. So if you're a smart person, you'd give respect to as many gods as you dare.

But the biblical authors, they don't buy this. Ultimately, where the Biblical authors are going is what he calls a binary view. Their fundamental view is there's Yahweh, the chief Elohim, then everything else. Or as the first commandment says, have no other gods before me. In the Biblical view, the creator God of the universe is in a class of his own. Yahweh is transcendent, unique, above all, totally different than all other reality. But if God's totally different than everything we can understand, then God would be a knowable, impossible to relate to, but strangely.

At the same time, they believe that that God is personal, knowable, involved in human history. He's utterly unique and other, but he is also, at the same time, completely involved in his story as interwoven with the story of this world. Theologians talk about this paradox as God's transcendence and his eminence. He's both unreachably far away and at the same time, intimately close by. And so, what does this look like practically?

How can a transcendent being enter our story? In the next few episodes, we're gonna explore that question. We're gonna look at a few ways that God interacts with the world. The first and most common way this happens few ways that God interacts with the world. The first and most common way this happens is what we'll look at in this episode, that God relates to us through other humans.

The majority of times in the whole Bible, old and New Testament, when God appears and interacts with people, it's through mediators, priests, prophets, kings, that kind of thing. When God does this, we get a glimpse of what it means to be truly human, what it means to be made in the image of God. There are going to be particular human characters, that God is going to use and act through in very unique ways. So much so, that it's hard to tell if it's the human acting or God acting. And Moses is actually the first character. Thanks for joining us. Here we go.

So we're gonna talk in this hour about Yahweh, how he relates to the world, the world, the created world. That's right. And before we get into that. Yes. Let's begin here. This would be a good summary then. Okay. I think there's the biblical scholar, sheesh, all things, some Old Testament, some Second Temple Judaism and New Testament. As he was Richard Balkham, he's one of my personal scholar heroes. And he's done a lot of writing and work on this,

both monotheism, Jewish beliefs in the one God, in the period of the second temple. And he's done a lot of work on the concept of Jesus' deity and the New Testament in light of all that. He's been really influential person on me. He has a helpful way of at least giving language, so I think he'll be helpful as we go on. So he talks about how most human cultures,

or most of human history, have had a gradient, he calls it a gradient view of reality. Namely, there are different grades of powerful beings in the universe. So humans, we're more powerful than squirrels, or cat, the sun might argue, that cats are smarter. No.

I don't know who are you, that. I have met people in my life that treat cats like humans. Oh, yeah. And relate to them as if they are equivalent. Anyway, squirrels are actually very dumb animals. I think we attribute too much intelligence to squirrels because they're cute Mm-hmm. Yeah personality squirrels. You know when they're like they're digging holes and dumping the air quans in Yeah, I think like 75% of those will never find again

Yeah, it's not Intelligence so okay gradient then you get humans and then in most So yeah, it's not that intelligent. So, okay, gradient. Then you get humans. And then, in most polytheists, views that there are many powerful divine beings would then go up, but there's different gradations, a gradient view of the world. And so, at the top is usually a particular deity or a handful of them, but then there's deities all the way down. And so this was true, especially in the ancient Greek and Roman world or in the Canaanite world.

So what it means is you have to acknowledge and honor all everybody that's above you, human or non-human, and so you accord them different degrees of honor. You're offering sacrifices to all kinds of gods, prayers, and this kind of thing. So this is the world in which the Bible comes into existence, is in a what he calls a gradient view, cultures with a gradient view of the world. He says, ultimately, where the biblical authors are going is what he calls a binary view. Their fundamental view is there's Yahweh, the chief Elohim, and then everything else. So spiritual and physical. Yes. So Yahweh, he's the creator of all, and he's the sovereign supreme ruler of all. He might delegate some of that authority, but you can't ever truly compare middle management to the founder. And other cultures, the primary God, the kind of head God, usually kind of fought his way to the top or like...

That's right. And another deity might make its way to the top one day. So it's a big battle, but in the binary view, it's like, no, there's just one... Just the way. He created everything. Page one, no rivals. He doesn't have to slay any other gods. No one's ever going to be able to take over his job. The based assumption of the biblical authors is that there's only one chief.

So that's a great definition of monotheism there, right? Yes, yeah, totally. That's what he's going to say is biblical monotheism. Biblical monotheism. Yeah, which again, doesn't deny the existence of other Elohim. It just says there is only one chief. And so that one chief puts that particular Elohim into a category of its own. So this is a quote from him, but I found this helpful. So he says monotheism, Jewish monotheism, understands the uniqueness of the one God in terms of an absolute difference in kind from all other reality. We could call this a transcendent uniqueness. Understanding the uniqueness of the God of Israel as the one creator and the one sovereign ruler of all things. So he has he's surveyed all the literature, all the patient literature. He notices these

themes. What is it that puts Yahweh in other unique category from any other being Elohim or human? He's the only creator that is no other Elohim participated with Yahweh in generating the universe. So you survey the literature, that's one distinct character trait. Yeah. The other one is Yahweh's the sovereign ruler. He might delegate authority for this or that,

but ultimately he's the one guiding the ship. He goes on, in ancient Judaism, this binary distinction between God and all other reality was observed and promoted by, he calls, monoletry, which is a weird worship one. Yeah, the worship of one. The worship, their worship and allegiance and prayers will offer it only to the one God of Israel. And this made Israelite stick out in the ancient world. Yeah, both in the Canaanite world. This is the first commandment.

It's the first commandment, no other gods. Yeah. The first commandment is Menolatry. So, right? Canaanite culture, all polytheistic, Greek and Roman culture, all polytheistic. So this was seen as offensive, even dangerous, you know, like think, if you're a Roman neighbor, or Greek, and you have some Jewish neighbors, you really believe that honoring the gods of the nation and the city and your neighborhood are all very important. You need to offer monthly sacrifices to secure the safety of your city. And then you've got these neighbors and they say, no, no, we don't

think those gods are actually even significant or worth paying attention to. They might be thinking like, you're going to screw this up for us. Yes, like you would think that's true. It's, it's political. It's treasonous. You're actually subverting the well-being of our community by worship saying there's only one God worthy of worship. So there's this had political, religious, economic significance. And it couldn't divorce it from the rest of life. And it was a public, physical, very visible practice. Not going to those temples, only offering prayer and worship to the God of Israel. Spiritual holdouts.

Totally. Yeah holdouts. Totally, yeah, totally. So yeah, think of some, gosh, the best analogy would be to find, like, again, in the modern West America, right? So different forms of liberal democracy, but then finding holdout groups, like anarchist groups, like that, That are truly like a- Not on board. We're not on board, and they publicly, visibly display themselves

in public as not on board. Yeah. And the hierarchy of power that you guys believe in. Correct. We don't care about. We don't care about. Yeah, it would be that kind of oddity. Yeah.

It's both odd and- It is kind of an anarchist. Yeah, a bit. Yeah, it is, yeah, totally. It's like the police, yeah, they don. It is kind of an darkest of the bit. Yeah, totally. It's like the police, yeah, they don't matter. Yeah, these are cult governors where they don't matter. Yeah, they don't matter.

Where everything politics, yeah, everything is run off of this gradient view of keeping all of the beings human and God like happy and honored. And all these Jews are going around saying now, there's only one God, I don't even think yours is real actually. That's just a piece of wood or it's real but it's subordinate. We're like another culture would just import their God and say, okay, we're going to worship our God too. Yes. Yeah. We worship all of your gods, but our God's important. So even though we're living in your city, that's right. We'll just show them to the left.

Sure, yeah, like a Macedonian who moves to Rome will be like, okay, well, I've got the gods I grew up worshiping, but now I'm in your country, you worship these gods, okay. I can get on board. I'll work them in. My schedule. Right.

Go into that temple. We'll put them on the counter. Correct, yeah. So, Jews, none of it. We're having none of this. Or at least that's the classic Jewish biblical monotheism. And so his point here is that that theological belief translated into very practical, political, economic choices that were visible to your neighbors. So his point here is that Judaism, to finish, according to him, Judaism turned their monolitry,

their worship of one God, into a powerful cultural symbol of exclusive monotheism. So you can't just talk about what did these biblical authors and Israelites believe we also have to look at their behavior. Their behavior and their beliefs mesh into this very particular way of life. There you go. That's a binary view of reality. So just ask yourself this question. If you hold the theological belief that there's only one Elohim that's the creator of all and the ruler of all, and worthy of your allegiance and worship.

But then you also have received all this traditional literature that you believe is authoritative and comes from that God that reveals that God. And there's all these stories that show God relating to people in very different kinds of ways. And so what you're gonna see is biblical authors on this balanced beam, because they believe that Yahweh is transcendent,

unique, above all, totally different than all other reality. Transcendent is what Balkham called it. At the same time, they believe that that God is personal, knowable, involved in human history, and often rolls up his sleeves and gets in the thick of things. Imminence. Imminence, yeah, the God is here now, Psalm 139.

Where can I go to escape you? You're everywhere, I go. And not just as a spirit, but actually at work in the world. And so the biblical authors are constantly, they're going to develop a very nuanced vocabulary, and they're going to draw a nuanced portrait in the stories of the Bible about God's transcendence, but also his involvement.

So what you see is that God relates to the world most often through some kind of mediator figure. And this is going to be crucially important once again for coming when we finally get to Jesus. Yeah. And understanding what it means to affirm the classic Christian conviction that Jesus is God become human. Yeah. The Jesus is. Yaw way become human. Yaw way become human. That Jesus is. Yahweh become human. Yahweh become human. That's right. Yeah, thank you. What does that even mean?

And for many people that's just to say Jesus is God, is how it's often put, I think is just confusing and actually doesn't help people in our cultural setting understand what the claim actually is. So there you go. So all of this is creating groundwork to help us understand the incarnation and the claim that God is Trinity, three and one. So that's where we're heading. That's where we're heading. And in order to get there, we need to first just talk about

how God relates to the world. To the world. Yeah. You got it. He's utterly unique and other. Yes. But he is also at the same time completely involved and his story is interwoven with the story of this world and

most of those are true at the same time even though they seem to be opposite to each other. Opposites because if he is so unique and other, he shouldn't be able to relate to the world? Well, in the discussions about deity, in the Greek philosophy tradition, there's all kinds of discussion about, well, if there is a being that is completely other, the unmoved mover, the uncaused cause, then that being to truly be, right, God, or ultimate deity, needs to be utterly removed from anything temporary or finite or material or if he's the uncaused cause, he doesn't care whether or not your cat dies or not. He doesn't weep when a city gets taken over by another invading army. He doesn't.

He's so powerful that we become non-important. This idea has been very influential in Christian history, in Christian thought. That if God is truly God, then he can't really, truly have a relationship, because that would cause God to respond to you a finite creature. So if God knows all and is all powerful, then he already knows whether or not you're going to get sick.

And so if you get sick, God won't be sad. Because you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So there's a whole layer of assumptions about what it means for a deity to be all powerful. So if a deity is all powerful, then the deity operates on a different plane that just doesn't jive and mesh with the way we operate.

Correct. It's like oil and water. Yes. They can't mix. Yeah. You and I are so not like that. Like we're very much subject to things that happen to us and into my environment and they affect my mood and the decisions I make. And for God, this divine, you know,

ultimate supreme being to then come down and interact in that way would actually then make him less. Correct. Of the supreme being. Correct. Yep. I'm saying this is a conception of deity that was made most clear in the Greek and Roman philosophical tradition, Plato, Aristotle,

Socrates and so on. But it's continued to haunt Christian history because that's formed some kind of default that we think, oh yeah, that's actually what it means for being to be the ultimate creator and supreme rule But in Jewish kind of Hebrew thought that they weren't wrestling with that Just they've taken for granted that no that's right. I would exactly that's what I'm saying the biblical authors are Walking this balance beam because they want to claim about Yahweh that he is ultimate creator, the uncaused cause, all that kind of thing, the ruler.

But yet his story is truly involved in and affected by the human story happening here. Do they see that as a balance beam? Do they see that as a compromise? Well, that's a good point. I'd have to think about that more. I don't know if they would conceive of it as a balanced beam. I see. But it's more that... But us looking back. Modern Westerners looking back with this paradigm handed to us from Greek thought. It seems like, oh, how are they dealing with this idea of a transcendent God? They seem to be going back and forth. Correct.

Delegately. Yeah, because you have Psalm 139 saying, where can I go from you, you're everywhere. Solomon, when he dedicates the temple, I know you really don't fully ever reside in a building, you above all the heavens. But then you have other stories that are like, yeah, there was a pillar of cloud and smoke over this building. And that was God. That was God there.

God has eyes that see. God has hands that do stuff. God has depicted as having a back that appears to Moses because you can't see my face. So all of a sudden, you have all these very human, almost material, creaturely, things said about God in the Bible. Right there alongside these very transcendent other, I am God and not man. No man can see me and live this kind of thing. So just on a face value reading the Bible you're

like, oh, this is a complex God. There's a complex portrait of God who's both transcendent and above all, but also totally involved and allows himself to be affected by human history. And this is what I'm calling just simply God's complex relationship to the world. And we need to honor that, first of all. And the second of all, allow the biblical story itself to remake what the word G-O-D means for us. So God's complex relationship to the world. So let's start with something very simple.

Pick up the Bible, read, start reading on page one, and you'll notice stories about Yahweh just like walking around, talking with people, and people responding to Yahweh like he's standing another character in the story standing right there. So God is taking a walk, right? The people eat the fruit and then God's depicted as walking around in the wind of the windy time of the day, saying, hey, where are you? And then he's somebody you can hide from, right? Because the human to hide.

So it's just like, oh, God's depicted as just walking around talking to people. Which is not a very transcendent type of image of God. It's very interesting. It's just that's a crucial part of the biblical portrait of Yahweh God is that he's personal and involved. So much so that in these narratives just and God said this. Yeah.

And Abraham said to God, well, not only is he walking around in the garden, he's walking around during a time what's very pleasant to walk around. That's right. Yeah. It's kind of like that's how much he's come down. That's right. Yeah. It's kind of like that's how much he's come down. That's right. Now, here's what's very interesting is that most of those narratives where there's no indication of a prophet representing God or a priest or anything like that, most of those

narratives are in the book of Genesis and they become very rare after the book of Genesis. Well, I take that back. I'd say Genesis and then the Exodus story. And then what's you move on, what, and especially once Moses dies, most everybody's interacting with Yahweh, the God of Israel, by means of some other mediator. The majority of times in the whole Bible, old New Testament, when God appears, the Yahweh God appears and interacts with people, it's through mediators. And a whole host of mediators. Many humans act as mediators on God's behalf to other humans.

And that's a very common way that God interacts with the world in the Bible. So priests, prophets, kings, that kind of thing. But then you have these other Elohim, which are sometimes called Elohim. Other times are called angels or just messengers. And then other times, there these what Bible nerds call personifications. There are attributes of God that are personified as characters in stories. So God's name, God's glory, God's word, God's spirit, God's wisdom. Well, there's all stories and poems about each of those divine attributes that are depicted in narratives in some form as being characters that are God but are also distinct

from God and mediating God in some way. And they mediate God in some way. But this all fits under this category of this binary view of reality. So there's the Supreme Chief Creator God, he's above all, but he's not totally removed, like Greek conception of deity. This God is intimately involved and aware and active in the world, most often through mediators. Sometimes other creatures, and then sometimes through these in-between categories of personified divine attributes. So mostly I just want to walk you through those big categories and give you examples. And again, here's why. It's because when we go to the New Testament and look at how the apostles describe Jesus,

they're going to draw upon all of these categories. In other words, they're going to describe Jesus with the language of these different types of agents or mediators that God uses in the Hebrew Bible. And it really helps to know what tradition or category the apostles are tapping into as they make their claims about who Jesus is and his relationship to God. Okay, sounds good. Let's do it. Ten cheers. So first I'm going to start with human, how God works in the world through humans.

This is very important to the narrative logic of the whole biblical story. And if the theme we've talked about a ton, we've even made a video about it. The image of God. The image of God, yeah. Yeah. So this is interesting. Page one of the Bible tells us about Yahweh God generating and ordering the world. Why? What for? What's the purpose?

Well, we're not told the purpose on page one, you have to let the story develop. But apparently this God wants to share existence with other creatures. Yeah. And not just existence, but also... Yes. creatures. And not just existence, but also delicate and partnership. You want to partner with other creatures in the running and maintenance of a world. That's just ask of the trouble. I guess in as much as just if you enter a relationship with somebody that's not you, yourself. You're asking for trouble. Exactly. So how does God rule the world according to page one of the Bible?

And it's quite clear. It's through his images, through humans. So when God says, let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, let them rule over all the creatures on Earth. There's a couple things happening there. First of all, it's God delegating His own authority to humans. So wherever you see humans at work, you see an image of divine rule, of God's own rule, at least ideally. There's also the fascinating detail of the let us, our image, our likeness. Yeah, God said let us make man an our image, our likeness. Yeah, God said, let us make man an our image

of our likeness, which I've always been told as a good trinitarian evangelical. Yes. That's referring to the Trinity. The Trinity, right? That's why it's plural. Right. So I wanna push pause and just let the story develop

at its own pace. Before we go back and think about that fully developed portrait of the triune God, which I do think is what the whole story is claiming about God. If I'm looking for what other reference does that us or our have just within the Old Testament itself, the divine counsel is for sure the first place you would go. It's God sitting among his divine staff, saying, let's make a creature that will be under under our rule and authority. But the divine council is not making the creature. So let's let us. it's almost like let me

On behalf of what you watch right yes, yeah, why don't we and by we I mean me yeah, yeah I yeah, I hear that the thing is is there are many these other divine plurals happen They happen with the story of the building of Babylon Let's go down and see what they're up to down there. That's what God says when they start building. Let us go down. Let's go down. God. That's fine because they're all going to go down. They're all going to check it out. Isaiah, when Isaiah is commissioned by God, he has that vision in the temple. And who will go for us? Whom shall we send? So in all these, it says, common pattern.

It's an image of God publicly deliberating among the divine counsel about what his purposes and plans are. Okay. So that's at least the first layer of reference. Yeah. We know at least Ken mean and does mean that. Yes. There is a divine counsel and God often talks about what He's going to do and His intentions

in terms of the team. We're going to do it together. You guys report to me, I'm doing it, you're doing it. We're doing this together. We're doing this, we're in this. That's it. There we go. That's fascinating.

God announces to the divine council that they will appoint a creature that represents the divine rule. So, the narrative logic of the whole story of the Bible flows from right there. Whatever this story is going to be about, it's actually not only going to be about a spiritual being at work in the world. It's going to be about an Elohim Yahweh and humans together working in partnership that this whole story is going to make any sense and come to its completion. So right here you see in a sense God declaring some kind of self-limitation that his purposes in the world are going to be carried forward by another creature that may have its own purposes that don't correspond to God's purposes. Right.

And God creates space for that. Yeah. And there you go. That's the biblical drama. Yeah. Is the image bears redefine their own purpose in the world? And that's the conflict. And so in the plot structure, you've got the setting, which is the cosmos, you've got the characters, which are the humans, and the Elohim,

and then you've got the conflict, which is, or I guess the called action first, right? The called action, which is humans. Humans go rule the world on my behalf. Yeah, rule the world with me. Yes. Awesome. This is going to be a cool story. Yeah. And then the conflict becomes, well, we don't know if we want to do it the way you want it to be done. Yeah. We want to rule the world a different way. We want to rule the world a different way. Yeah.

And the whole story of the Bible is then, how does that conflict get resolved? Get resolved. That's right. It's a way of telling the story. It's more faithful to the actual biblical story. And it includes the more typical idea, known of Protestant Christianity at least, that the main conflict is the relationship between God and humans is broken. And while that's true, it's not just a relationship for the sake of a relationship,

it's a relationship for the sake of getting a job done, a partnership. And so the conflict isn't just about, let's reconcile our relationship. That still leaves unresolved. Who's going to rule the world? And the world still needs to be run. Yeah. Once we heal our friendship. And that's where the real adventure is. Yeah. So that's why most of the biblical story is about going to be about God dealing with, putting up with, and working through screwed up humans. And allowing screwed up humans to represent his purposes in the world. And this is where a lot of the scandal comes in.

It's like... Is patience of putting up with patience? Yeah. Or God committing Himself to actions that are not how God would do it if he were the only one involved. Right, you know? Right. If he was the only one involved, he'd just be chilling.

Totally. Well, and he'd just run the world, as we're gonna see within his own little community of love going on up there. Yeah. We're out there or wherever there is. In which case we're talking about a different God. A God that's content to exist solitary without any others is not at all of the God of the

Bible. So here you go on, then think through the biblical narrative that's humans, humans forfeit that. So God commits Himself to Noah, which is great until Noah gets drunk and blows it, then God commits himself to Abraham and is going to work out the divine purpose for all humanity, which is to bless, restore blessing to humans, but through a particular human and his family. Blessing being the role.

The role, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Restored relationship and restored job. Job. Vocation, yeah, that's right. So, okay, so we already have this category then. What happens to the story then is there are going to be particular human characters that God is going to use and act through in very unique ways. So much so,

that it's hard to tell if it's the human acting or God acting. And Moses is actually the first character. So when God calls Moses in the burning bush, this is from Exodus chapter 3. Famous story. And here's what God says to Moses. Surely, I've seen the affliction of my people in Egypt. I've given heed to their cry. I'm aware of their sufferings. I, I, I, I. So I'm coming down to deliver them from the Egyptians.

I'm going to bring them up to the land that's good and spacious. Who's going to save Israel? I, I, I, I, Yahweh. Verse 10, chapter three. Therefore, come, Moses, I'm going to send you to Pharaoh so that you bring the people up out of Egypt. Wait. Did you just change his mind?

You can go down. Exactly, yeah. I'm gonna do it. Okay, so Moses, you can do it, right? Yeah. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. So Moses, you go do it. Yeah, that. Yeah, I'm gonna do it. Okay. So Moses you can do it, right? Yeah, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it I'm gonna do it. So Moses you go do it. Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, like in a different context That would seem really silly. Yeah, like yes. Oh, yeah, that's right. Oh, you're right in any other story This would seem like yeah, but gots changing his mind going back on what he said he would do

Yeah, I'm trying to picture a picture a story like a classic story, I don't know, like. I have a live example, it doesn't put myself in a flattering life. But it's happening right now. Okay. We're back in the recording room having this conversation. My son's kindergarten's having a fundraiser selling these coupon books.

All right. And for two weeks, I've been had the job of telling people about it here in the Bible Project Studio. And I have, I have. But you got close to deal. We got close to deal. And so Jessica was texting me while we were talking about monotheism or whatever a few minutes ago.

And I essentially had to say, I did it, I did it. Now I guess you'll have to come in and and like finish getting the names and like do the deal. Yeah you close the deal. Yeah exactly you do it and in that case Jessica's very much experiencing it as a Tim Setti would do it but now I have to do it. Yeah. It's actually passing responsibility. Well that's that's very self-aware of you to realize that I'm making her close to do in almost any normal relationship. It's It's passing the baton right which means I'm not doing it But that's not how God works in this story. Yeah

And that's for me when once that clicked I realized oh This is its own category of story. It, oh, this is its own category of story. It is its own category of story. I think we could hit this home a little bit more in like, I don't know why I'm having a hard time thinking of an example. Trying to think of some sort of story where someone has a quest. And it's like, I'm gonna do it.

It's like, all right, I'm in, I'm gonna do this. Like, I'm on board, like Frodo climbing the mountain or the ring's on the other side. Okay, hey, hey, that's a good example. Yeah, let's run with it. Okay. You go first. So there's probably some part of the story

where Frodo is like, all right, I'm in, I'm gonna climb Mount Doom. I'm gonna do this. And so if he's there with Sam, right? And they're like, I'm gonna do it. I'm going, this is my, this is my role. This is what I need to do. And then if he turns the Sam and says, okay, so go, so go. Yes, yeah. All hang out here and you go do it. Right. Sam would be like, what? You said you would do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's weird. Yes. You said you would do it. Yeah, yeah, that's weird.

Yes. Yeah. Here's why I like that you bring it up though, is because in that story, their partnership is extremely important. Yeah, that's true. So there are moments, it's not actually a perfect analogy at all to the Biblical story, but it's about the category. It's about that one person's will and purpose has to happen

through more than just that person. He needed Sam. And there are many points at which the movement towards Mount Doom is actually happening because of Sam. And Sam's will and purpose. So it's a joining of multiple wills and purpose to do what the first person said I have to do this. So in the case of that, it's because Frodo's weakness or he gets compromised. So that's where it falls apart in this narrative, because it's not because it got to weakness.

But it is a helpful analogy about the merging of two wills to accomplish the purpose of one will. And so did Frodo take the ring to Mount Doom? Yes. But sometimes it was Frodo. Sometimes it was through Sam, and sometimes through them working together. So there's something similar here. God said, my purpose is that humans carry forward the divine rule in the world. And here God's purpose is to save some suffering slaves that are his covenant people. And so I'm going to do it.

So Moses, you go do it. And that makes perfect. And that's how I'm going to do it. And that's how I'm going to do it. God's going to do it by Moses doing it. Because God could have just come down in a pillar of smoke and just made it happen. Yeah. And what you'll notice, once you have this category, you'll notice that a number of stories

where God does something without a human agent is like less than the fingers on my hand. It's very rare that God does things directly. Most of the narratives is Bible or about God. And most of them are in Genesis. And most of them are in Genesis. And most of them are in Genesis. Yeah. Yeah. So here's that, it begins to create a category for you that sometimes these human mediators,

agents, I'm going to call them agents, things that are said about them are now also said about Yahweh himself. For example, in chapter 6 of Exodus, God says, I'm Yahweh, speaking to the Israelites through Moses, I'm Yahweh, I am going to bring y'all out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. He's got a Southern accent. I will. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm. And that's the first appearance of a phrase that's going to appear dozens of times in the story and throughout the Bible. With an outstretched arm, I brought you out of Egypt. It's a key phrase.

Yep, I'm gonna do it. So, but that's an interesting image. Like where did that come from? The arm. Yeah. I don't know. Okay, all right, I'm raising the question because story's gonna answer. Got it. Okay. It's a great metaphor with an outstretched arm. Yeah. Like what does that, you know, it's got to have some sort of already some sort of meaning in that language. Yeah, yeah, whether it's a strong arm, so we're talking about strength, but the outstretched arm. And so you have to read on, what does it mean that God's arm is stretched out to save the people? And then you go to chapter 7 and the 10 plague start. And almost all of the plague start with lines like this.

Yahweh said to Moses, go to Pharaoh in the morning, when he's going out to the water, stand on the bake, take the staff in your hand, and say this, by this you'll know that I am Yahweh with the staff in my hand,

I'll strike the water. So Moses did, he lifted up the staff and struck the water. So Moses is lifting the staff and saying, I am Yahweh. Yeah. Oh wow. Well, he's speaking as Yahweh's prophetic voice. Yeah.

So he's saying, say to Moses, imagine the scene here, Moses speaking to Pharaoh with the staff, he's stretching out his arm, saying, I am Yahweh with the staff in my Yahweh's hand. I strike. In my Yahweh's hand. And then the narrative says, and Moses lifted the staff and struck the...

So Moses as a human character is being presented as a stand-in for Yahweh himself. Right. So much so that Yahweh can speak of Moses' arm as my arm, my outstretched arm. This isn't saying that Moses is God. Okay. Right? Yahweh is not saying that Moses' now has become deity.

That he's an Elohim or that he's Yahweh himself. Correct. It is elevating Moses in, wow, what a job. Yeah. What a responsibility to represent God in that way. He's the agent. Yeah. But the emphasis is actually the opposite.

It's that, whoa, God's so committed that he will allow himself to be so fully represented by a human. There you go. So that's the category. So Moses is the first biblical character that you're like, whoa, this guy's. I'm looking at him and I'm apparently looking at a really close representative of Yahweh.

There's that weird story about, Moses goes up on the mountain and he comes down as face is glowing. Yeah. And right, and so just so the tabernacle you have the curtains covering the Holy of Holies. So Moses has to put a little curtain in front of his face. Because in some way God is shining through him. Yeah, it's as if he's an image. Yeah. He's like an image that now reflects the very brightness of Yahweh himself, because he's been, he's so close. So where are you saying then that this was the hope for humans being images all along,

that they would be agents for God? Okay, yeah, yeah. So as if the narratives about Moses are showing us a human who is recapturing the original job description, the ideal human. So to be the image of God is to have your own will but to allow yourself to be an agent of God's will. Yeah. The more that my own will becomes merged with God's will. First of all, I don't become less myself.

I become more myself. I become more human. And I share in God's glory. I become a reflector of God's glory. And if this is starting to sound like the New Testament, it's actually because the New Testament is sounding like the Old Testament. And particularly, the character of Moses

is crucially important for understanding the incarnation of Jesus. Just this way, because Moses, as it goes on in the story, he has deep flaws. He's very imperfect. But when he's at his best, completely submitted to Yahweh, he's fully himself. But he's fully an agent of Yahweh. And in those moments, it's hard to tell him apart from Yahweh. In the narrative, because his arm is Yahweh's arm, his face shines like Yahweh's face. Like the Tabernet.

And it's not trying to say Moses is God. It's trying to say Moses is an image of God. It's page one. Which was the purpose of humanity. Of humanity? Yes. So this is a really important category. I never heard this anywhere.

Anybody talk about this? But over the years, as I've read, and now I'm reading other people who are Bible nerds, like Bible nerds are tracking with all this. There's lots of theologians and scholars, but I never heard this talked about. And it's so helpful. I've never either.

Yeah, so the summary would be, if I had to summarize, that we're really talking about the image of God. Yeah. And we're talking about, why did God create humans? Why did He create anything? Why did He just chill out and be God? Why did He create anything with its own will and agency? Well, God wanted to delegate his authority and he wanted other beings to partner with him.

And in the Bible, that's the phrase is the image of God. And then the question becomes, well, now in this world where humans are kind of in rebellion, how is God going to interact with these humans? What's his relationship with humanity? And the big takeaway is that almost always, God doesn't just show up and do something on his own. There's always some sort of mediator that's acting on God's behalf. You could actually count on your one hand how many times God actually just shows up on his own. It usually happens

as a Genesis example of a Genesis 2 that God's walking in the cool garden. Jesus, they're walking chilling. And so we bring this all to Moses and we get this picture of a human who is mediating on God's behalf so much so that there's actually like literary confusion as to is it God acting or is it Moses acting? Is it Moses' outstretched arm or is it God's outstretched arm? And there's this fusion. And now Moses is acting, his will has become God's will in such a way that it's hard to separate the two. Does that mean Moses is now God? No. It means Moses is the image of God, the purpose that God had for humanity in the first place. And it's this really beautiful picture of recapturing what the purpose of humanity was to be aligned with the will of God. And it doesn't make you less human. It makes you human, truly human. It doesn't give you less of a will. It just aligns your

will, the divine will. And in Moses' case, it brings justice. Yeah, it brings liberation. Liberation. In that case. Right. It's something that brings life and goodness to the world. To the world. When you're doing this. Correct. That image of Moses coming down from the mountain and his face shining. Yes. And having to cover it like a tabernacle covering the spirit of God. It's like that's how intense it is when you're aligned. And that category of God working through a mediator in this case a human and where it gets so fused, that category is going to be important for us to carry forward as we continue the narrative.

Yep, and to understand what the New Testament's trying to tell us about Jesus. Okay, the rabbit hole goes deeper. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project Podcast. This podcast is a part of a nonprofit called the Bible Project. We make free videos and resources that you can find at thebileproject.com. This podcast is produced by Dan Gummel and the music on this episode was specially created by Tay the producer. The entire project is a crowd-funded endeavor and it's made possible by thousands of people

like you. So thanks for being a part of this with us. Hey, my name is Simon and I live in the beautiful city of Vienna, Austria. So, danke für das Christus kennen lernen. Ich liebe das Bibelprojekt, weil ich mich in Germany zu der Welt zu trainieren, zu lauf Jesus Christ. Wir believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We are a crowdfunded project by people like me. Find free videos, podcast, study notes and more at thevibalproject.com. you