[E]ven if I were still and agnostic, as once I was, I would not accept the concept of evolution from the molecule to man in unbroken line. My rejection of this does not turn upon my being Christian, but comes rather because I think this concept is weak and certainly has not been proven (in any sense of the word proven). It is a theory with may unproofs. —Francis Schaeffer, No Final Conflict
Author: Josh King
Why is Moses More Popular than Joshua? (Exodus 23:20–33)
Why is Moses more popular than Joshua? While the exodus remains marketable, the conquest is an embarrassment to many. Sure, “Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho,” but let’s do a exodus to conquest film count. Whole theologies, false ones mind you, have been built up around the exodus, what of the conquest? Perhaps some fundies and charismatics might make much of it, but they’re made little of, which proves the point.
I believe one reason is that in the exodus Israel is seen as the oppressed, while in the conquest as the oppressor. Egypt put Israel to hard slavery and killed their male newborns. What did the Canaanites do to Israel? We root for the underdog. We like the overthrow of tyrants. We hate genocide.
The problem with all of this is it puts the events in terms of Israel, not God. The questions to ask are, “What did the Egyptians do against God? What did the Canaanites do against God?” That we frame the events in terms of man, and not God, shows that we’re not far from the same wicked idolatry that evoked such wrath and judgment. Liberation theology says God has a heart for the oppressed and delivers them. Surely, God hates oppression, but many oppressed peoples perish. The ten wonders were not first an expression of God’s hatred of Egypt’s sin as it was against Israel, but as it was against Him. The deal with Israel is that God has linked Himself to her in covenant. Mess with her and you mess with Him.
If you think little of sin you think little of God. Sin is heinous to the degree God is glorious. If sin is trite, if God should pass easily over it, it means He is not that big of a deal, and if God is not that big of a deal, nothing is. The death of sin is the death of significance. But this death can only happen theoretically, because God is, and He is glorious and holy without measure, and therefore sin is infinitely evil.
Now, back to the conquest. The irony of conquest shame is that the exodus was for the conquest. You cannot celebrate the exodus and debase the conquest. Further, the iniquity of the Canaanites appears to have been worse. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and sulfur from heaven for their great wickedness, and the rest of Canaan was only a few centuries behind. God told Abraham that one reason why Israel would not enjoy the land for sometime was because, “the iniquity of the Amorites [was] not yet complete (Genesis 15:16).” For five hundred years God patiently waits, and when their depravity knows no bounds, then His wrath comes.
Read the conquest language carefully. Yes, unlike the Exodus, Israel takes up the sword, but this is Yahweh’s fight. Yahweh is a warrior and Israel is His sword. Salvation always comes by judgment. At the time of conquest, as on that last day when we prepare to enter the eternal land of rest, Jesus’ war is against idolatry and for worship. We simply bow the knee to Him as the rightful, glorious, and worthy King of kings.
The Apologist: Little Left but the -ism
It is my conviction that the crucial area of discussion for evangelicalism in the next years will be Scripture. At stake is whether evangelicalism will remain evangelical. —Francis Schaeffer, No Final Conflict
Don’t Use Pencil, but Indelible Ink (Exodus 23:10–19)
God’s calendar certainly seems to intrude on their time doesn’t it? There’s the rub. “Their time” is a myth. Time is one of God’s biggest blessings, for any time that we’re given means that we’re not suffering the eternal hell we deserve. Time is grace. Time is His. By these Sabbaths and feasts, God isn’t imposing on their time, He is giving them time—sacred time.
Time, as given to all humanity, is a common grace, a grace that saints and sinners alike share. These Sabbaths and feasts were grace saturated time. They were times of special grace. When Israel followed God’s calendar, the poor were fed, the livestock flourished, the land was fruitful, all enjoyed rest, and celebration was mandatory. When God puts you on His calendar, you don’t want to miss it.
God doesn’t intrude on our time, we’ve intruded on His. Grace resets our calendars around God. For those who have eyes of faith, these celebrations were a command to rejoice and rest. By these feasts God was inviting them to taste the future when all time would be all holy; a day when sins’ curse would no longer blight the harvest and death would not eat at time. The church now assembles on the Lord’s day to feast over the Word and Sacraments as a foretaste of that same future. For those with eyes of faith, there is resting and rejoicing. If you feel God intrudes on your time, beware your soul. If God isn’t lord of your time, He isn’t your Lord and you know neither real rest or joy.
The Apologist: Better a Few Evangelicals than Many -icals
We must say that if evangelicals are to be evangelicals, we must not compromise our view of Scripture. There is no use in evangelicalism seeming to get larger and larger, if at the same time appreciable parts of evangelicalism are getting soft at that which is the central core—namely the Scriptures. —Francis Schaeffer, No Final Conflict
Patriarchy means Protection and Provision (Exodus 22:16–23:9)
When it comes to laws concerning widows and orphans (Exodus 22:22-24), God breaks protocol. The ten words from the fire came directly from God to the people and were written by Him in stone (Deuteronomy 10:12–13). The Book of the Covenant runs from 20:22–23:33 and came to the people through the mediation of Moses and were written by him on parchment (Exodus 24:4, 7). This means most of the Book of the Covenant is in the second person, but when it comes the fatherless and husbandless, the first person is resumed.
“If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless (Exodus 22:23–24).”
The cry of the oppressed orphans and widows would rise to God the same way Israel’s cries came to God under their Egyptian oppressors. God is telling them there could be an Israel within Israel and they might find themselves to be Egyptians. In the prophets a frequent reason given for the exile is their treatment of orphans and widows.
“For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever (Jeremiah 7:5–7).”
When father’s are absent, God is a father to the fatherless in a special sense. This is patriarchy, which is to say this is fatherhood. We style ourselves complementarian contra egalitarians, and that’s all well and good, but there is an older term, a more descriptive term, though a more offensive one: patriarchalism. Patriarchalism doesn’t men that women are used and abused but protected and provided for. It means that there are fathers.
The reason why widows and orphans were so vulnerable is because they were fatherless (also meaning hudsband-less).Why do so many women and children tremble behind locked doors? Because there are too few men inside as protectors and too many men outside as predators. The problem isn’t patriarchy. The problem isn’t fatherhood. That’s the solution. The problem is the absence of patriarchy. A father-ful society is the best one for widows and orphans. Father famine abounds, but to the hungry we say there is a Father feast above. The only hope of impacting father famine on the ground is for men to be transformed by the Father in the Son through the Spirit so that they show forth His image in the world.
“When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this (Deuteronomy 24:19-22).”
The Apologist: Bow Etiquette
Prior to the Fall, Adam in coming to God only had to bow once—as a creature before the Creator. But now, after the Fall of Adam, we must bow twice—as a creature before the Creator and as a sinner coming to a holy God through Jesus’ work. —Francis Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time
The Most Important Responsibility Lesson: You Can’t (Exodus 21:33–22:15)
Man is responsible, therefore he should be responsible. That’s not a tautology. The child who just makes a mess is responsible—for the mess. The child who cleans up his mess is being responsible. God is sovereign over all, and owns that responsibility. Man, made in his image is given dominion as a steward king. He’s responsible. You’re responsible for how those things under your dominion—be they your arms, or the arms of an employee—you’re responsible for how they effect things under other’s dominion. To steal, is to sinfully use your dominion against another’s.
Exodus 21:33–22:15 deals with responsibility issues that are an application of God’s eighth word from the fire, “You shall not steal.” Certainly having a sheep who got out despite good fencing and devoured the neighbor’s garden is no theft, but failure to take responsibility for the sheep’s damage is. You should make restitution, and to go further, invite your neighbor over for some roast mutton. He did help to fatten it after all.
To illustrate the various situations at play in this passage, lets jump out to jump back in. Something like what the Pevensie children did, when they jumped into Narnia only to jump back as better persons into their world, only our venture will be much less fantastical. But we need something to jump from, so let’s use the principle of responsibility and jump from theft to parenting.
Parents are responsible and part of that responsibility involves teaching their children responsibility. If a child knows a pencil sharpener is broken, so that it will eat up the next kid’s pencil and he’s done nothing, he’s been negligent. He should make restitution while he receives the damaged pencil (Exodus 21:33–36). If he steals a pencil, he should give it back, plus one (Exodus 22:4). If he steals the pencil and destroys it, he should make something like four-fold restitution (Exodus 22:1). If a pencil was entrusted to him, and it was stolen because of his carelessness and the thief isn’t caught, he should give the owner one of his pencils (Exodus 22:10–12). If he borrows a friend’s pencil and damages it, he should give a new pencil to the owner (Exodus 22:14). If he tries to rent a pencil (Exodus 22:15), well, then you tell him that he is to refrain from such activity until he can read and understand a rental agreement contract.
Imagine the societal impact if parents took responsibility to teach their children responsibility. But, if parents only teach their children to take responsibility, they’ve failed miserably short in teaching them about responsibility. The most important lesson is this, they can never, ultimately make their wrongs right. What they stole on Monday, should they return it on Wednesday, they can never give back Tuesday. Part of the evil of theft is that something is always stolen that cannot be returned. Destroy a pencil and you can never return that pencil. Steal a pencil, and there’s always a little less lead; there’s never enough to get you out of the red.
Remember, all stuff is God’s stuff. Theft is rebellion against His distribution, a belittling of the wisdom of His providence, and a mockery of His power to do anything about it. Worse yet, all sin is theft. All sin is a stealing from God what is His due, and He is due all. Do you have some “all” in your back pocket? Obey perfectly from this point forward, still you cannot give back 1996, the year of stupidity. God deserved 1996, and you tried to embezzle it. You can’t make your rights wrong, but you should. Anselm said it something like this: no one should make payment but man, no one can make payment but God. The debt we cannot pay, God did in Christ Jesus. If a thief sold himself into slavery to pay his debts (Exodus 22:3), then a near kinsman may purchase him out of his slavery by paying the redemption price. Jesus took on flesh that He might be our kinsman redeemer and ransom us by His precious blood (1 Peter 1:18–19) so that the record of our debt was nailed to the cross (Colossians 4:13–14).
We’re not redeemed because God made a settlement. The debt was fully paid. All that was owed in both obedience and damnation was fully rendered and suffered by Christ in out stead. Such redemption not only pays our debts, it transforms us to be, as best we may to our neighbor, debt payers. Redemption makes us responsible.
The Apologist: The Ultimate Separation of the Fall
We recall that numerous separations came about because of the Fall. There were alienations between God and man, man and himself, man and other men, man and nature, and nature and nature. The last separation is the separation between the Father and the Son when Jesus died on the cross. The separations that resulted from man’s Fall were brought to their climax as Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, being bruised and bearing our sins in substitution, cried aloud: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mt. 27:46). —Francis Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time
Bloody Justice and Bloody Grace (Exodus 21:12–32)
Give God’s law a fair shake and I believe you’ll be struck with the fairness of it. A cursory glance looking for barbarisms and inconsistencies won’t suffice. That’s not fair. Study it. Generally our society agrees that law takes some of that. I don’t want to argue for this here, rather, I want you to be struck with where you see this in the Bible.
After God’s mighty redemption of His people He gives them these laws of justice. After grace, justice. After mercy, righteous judgment. Grace isn’t allergic to justice. Mercy isn’t polarized against righteousness. Remember that the salvation of God’s people came by judgment. Justice fell on Egypt that Israel might go free. But this wasn’t justice enough. The death penalty hung over Israel’s head as well. If they were to go free, redemption must be paid. A lamb must bleed. There will be blood: bloody justice and bloody grace. The only reason any get grace, is because God upheld justice.
“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3:21–26).”
God compromises no justice in His grace, and His grace instills justice into His people. We who are saved by grace should seek justice. When one son harms another, a good parent punishes the guilty not only because they love the innocent, but because they love the offender. We should lovingly seek for justice to be done in society by the proper authorities, all while declaring the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel of Christ who shed his blood in payment for the eternal death penalty that stood over our heads. May God’s redemption make us people of righteousness.
No Other Boast 