Preparation (Purgation): Prophets
Reading: Romans 1:17.
- I. Consigned to Disobedience (and Mercy)
Ex 32 foreshadows Israel's subsequent history:
- At Sinai the covenant is broken (literally) by its own stewards, Israel is felled and plagued and that generation is dispossessed (echoing what happened to the Egyptians), and God makes a fresh start for a future generation.
The Deuteronomic covenant's blessings and curses are theoretically options (30:19), but practically destinies (31:16-19, 32:36):
-
| death |
life |
| disobedience |
obedience |
| vice |
virtue |
| forgetting |
remembrance |
| folly |
wisdom |
| idolatry |
worship |
- In contrast to typical philosophical and theological treatments of divine-human agency, in the Bible
- God engages societies/cultures/peoples, not just individuals.
Israel's history, Deut 31-32's covenantal blessings and curses, the prophets, and Romans 9-11 focus on Israel as a people.
- Israel must inherit each consequence of sin and depravity:
- scattering in exile (Jer 9:16), dispossession (Israel is cherem in Isa 43:28), and institutional and a fair amount of literal death (Eze 37:1-3's valley of dry bones).
Then God begins a work of new creation (Isa 48:7) that prepares for their restoration: regathering/replenishment (Jer 23:3-6), reunion/appointment (Isa 44:21-23, 45:22-25), and regeneration/resurrection (Eze 37:7-14).
The covenantal trajectory is not simply reward or punishment of attitude or conduct (cf. Islam),
but judgment and restoration through grace (good news).
- Israel's character is shaped by the sequence of its making, calling, deliverance, apostasy, ruin, and restoration in the face of God's blessings.
- Its disastrous apostasy and exile train it to remember and observe (Neh 8), forging Judaism.
This doesn't save it, but it does preserve Israel as perhaps the world's most resilient people.
- New creation is a fundamental category for the self-understanding of Israel, Jesus, and his church.
- Conventional ethics tends to be focused on the moment instead of that moment's context of the Kingdom's obscure framework.
- Christianity (and Judaism), by contrast, feature an 'interim ethic' that waits and prepares for a coming change from without.
- Goals, virtues, rules, and reasoning/judgment will be mindful of our eschatological context.
- II. Go! The Purgative Way
The purgative way aptly addresses the ends of disposal and fruitfulness.- Katharsis or disposal in transformation:
- A generation in the wilderness purges Israel's mental slavery (Num 11:4-6 in Num 11).
Israel remains unrefined in her idolatry (Deut 10:16, Jer 6:27-30) and refined in her affliction (Isa 48:10).
Israel's disciples are refined by Messiah's ministry and suffering (Zech 13:7-9, Dan 11:35, Mal 3:1-4):
Leaving to follow (Luke 6:20-26, 9:22-25, 9:59-62, 10:4, 12:32-34, 14:25-33, 18:18-30, 21:34-36).
Salt resisting assimilation and light resisting seclusion under pressure of persecution, to remain useful (Matt 5:11-16).
Pruning for fruitfulness (John 14:31b-15:11); cleansing out old leaven (1 Cor 5:7).
Being strengthened to survive Satan's sifting (Luke 22:31-34).
Freedom from slavery to sin (Rom 6:1-14) and crucifixion of the flesh (Rom 13:13, Gal 5:16-24) for sanctification.
Burying the perishable, dishonorable, and weak (1 Cor 15:42-44); putting off the vicious old (Col 3:1-10).
Letting enough be enough (1 Peter 4:1-7); empathy for the useless (Titus 3:1-9).
(Here virtue is not an Aristotelian balancing of extremes but disposal and renewal.)
- Character freed from distraction, impulse, and instability faces the future virtuously,
- with hope that perseveres (Rom 5:1-5).
- Purgation and edification depend on each other: Luke 12:24-26.
- Stories of detachment and fruitfulness include
- Abraham, Ruth, Josiah, Daniel, Rahab, exiled Israel, Job, John the Baptist, the woman at the well, the Twelve, Paul, Basil of Caesarea, Francis of Assisi, John of the Cross, John Wesley, Amy Carmichael, Mother Teresa, Thomas Merton ...
- Purgative practices include
- asceticism (e.g., fasting), Lent, confession and accountability, ordeal/trial, penance, exorcism, "water baptism," tithing/sacrifice, patience, focusing (Luke 10:38-42), silence (James 1:19-20), migration.
- III. Ways of Engagement
God's prophetic way of 'engaging a culture' is revolutionary and remaking, by the power of the Holy Spirit upon us.
- This compares with other modes of engagement in Israel as well as Jesus' ministry of fulfillment:
patriarchs (beginning, going/following, bequeathing: manifesting the Spirit before us),
kings (commanding, authorizing, judging: manifesting the Spirit over us),
sages
(contemplating, discipling, wooing, training: manifesting the Spirit in us), and
priests (interceding, healing, teaching: manifesting the Spirit into and through us).
- All of these involve 'grace' directed at 'nature' through various means:
- nurture (patriarchal? sagistic?),
legacy and blessing (patriarchal?),
evangelism, preaching, and words of knowledge (prophetic?),
sacraments, blessings, sacred space and objects (priestly?),
prayer and encouragement (priestly?),
authority and influence (royal?),
service (royal?),
advocacy (royal?),
analysis and insight (sagistic?),
strengthening presence (sagistic?), etc.
Jesus Christ and his followers will take on all of these in the Spirit for the eschatological interim.
- Means of grace are treated differently in distinct later Christian traditions:
- Catholics/Wesleyans (and Orthodox): God infuses justifying/divinizing grace and sanctifying virtue.
Lutherans: God imputes grace with the power of the gospel, received (and lived out) in faith.
Both: The church is God's instrument for continuing this mission.
