The Heart of the Old Testament

A Survey of Key Theological Themes

Youngblood, Ronald

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 1998
• ISBN:
  9781585586042
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Traces nine key theological strands through the Hebrew Scriptures and shows how they link to the New Testament. Highly accessible, profoundly insightful.

I am God, and there is no other.

Isaiah 45:22

Until fairly recently, a few theologians were telling us that God was dead. These so-called Christian atheists did not always agree in their explanations of what it meant to say, “God is dead.” Some of them felt that God died when Christ came to earth nearly two thousand years ago. Others stated that God had died within our own lifetime. Still others insisted that, although God may very well have been alive somewhere, for all practical purposes he had died because we had refused him entrance into our hearts and denied him relevance in our conduct and experience.

Needless to say, the true Christian could never deny the existence of God in theory and ought never to deny the relevance of God in practice. Of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we often sing, “You ask me how I know he lives? He lives within my heart.” And if we really know God the Son, we know God the Father also (John 14:7). It is highly unlikely that the temptation to “Christian atheism,” which is in itself a contradiction in terms, could ever seriously affect the person who has been born again by God the Holy Spirit.

Similarly, the temptation to atheism was not a serious problem for believing Israelites in ancient times. They were convinced that only an immoral reprobate would be so foolish as to deny the existence of a supreme being (Ps. 14:1; 53:1). For the people of God in the Old Testament period, practicing the presence of God was life itself. Having respect for the Lord and holding him in awe was for them the very basis of knowledge and wisdom (Prov. 1:7; 9:10).

However, other temptations concerning the nature of God tantalized the people of ancient Israel. If they did not doubt the fact that there was at least one God, their neighbors from other nations often faced them with the possibility that there might be more than one. Egypt, for example, was a polytheistic nation. Its people believed and taught that there were many gods. In fact, they were convinced that their pharaoh himself was a god. Many of Israel’s nearer neighbors, among them Edom and Moab, were henotheistic or monolatrous. They believed in and worshiped only one primary god, but they did not deny the existence of other secondary gods and goddesses. One of the questions that the Old Testament poses is whether the people of Israel would remain true to the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Creator and Lord of the universe. Would they maintain their belief in monotheism, or would they be attracted to monolatry, or henotheism, or—worst of all—polytheism?

Many students of comparative religion have taught that monotheism is a product of evolution. As human beings evolved, they have said, so also did their religions evolve from lower stages to ever higher stages, finally arriving at monotheism, the highest stage of all, the stage that proclaims the truth that there is only one God. Since Israel is a part of the human race, the Israelite religion must have begun, we are told, in the dim and distant past as animism, which teaches that all natural objects, whether animate or inanimate, are alive and indwelt by one or more supernatural spirits. From animism the idea developed in Israel that certain spirits are more powerful than others and therefore deserve to be called “gods.” Among these would be the sun-god, the ocean-god, the river-god, the bull-god, and many similar deities. Thus, we are told, Israel became polytheistic. Eventually the most powerful of Israel’s gods assumed his place of prominence above the others, and the people became henotheistic (believing in his supreme authority) and monolatrous (worshiping him alone). Finally, it is supposed, Israel reached the point of admitting that the lesser gods did not even exist and that in fact there was only one God. Comparative religion often teaches, then, that the religion of Israel underwent a process of evolution from animism to polytheism to henotheism to monotheism.

But it simply cannot be shown that there is a universal tendency on the part of polytheistic religions to gradually reduce the number of deities until finally arriving at only one deity. Indeed, in some instances such a religion may even add more deities as its adherents become aware of more and more natural phenomena to deify. At any rate the Old Testament teaches that monotheism, far from having evolved through the centuries of Israel’s history, is one of the inspired insights revealed to the covenant people by the one true God himself.

The pure form of monotheism described in the Old Testament is unique to biblical religion. The God of the Old Testament is the transcendent Creator of everything that exists. He stands outside the universe; he is not a part of it. There are only three religions in our modern world that share this viewpoint, and all of them are based on the revealed religion of Israel. Judaism, in accepting the Old Testament as its Scriptures, has joyously affirmed the Old Testament view of God as well. The opening statement of its basic creed, known as the Shema, begins with the well-known words of Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” In a similar way Christianity has confessed the same truth because Christ himself declared it to be a part of the most important commandment (Mark 12:28–30). Paul in fact defined monotheism in its most classic form in 1 Timothy 2:5: “There is one God.” As the third major religion of our time that has embraced a transcendent form of monotheism, Islam has expressed the doctrine in the same clear-cut and categorical way. Five times a day the Muslim muezzin mounts his minaret and in a loud voice calls the faithful to prayer: “There is no god but God.”

Certain other modern religions, such as Zoroastrianism and Sikhism, embrace forms of monotheism that are inferior to the Old Testament teaching. They are derived from earlier dualistic or polytheistic systems. Moreover they suggest that God is a part of this world order and not separate from it, and this by necessity rather than by choice. But only the religion of the Old Testament and its derivatives proclaim the one true God who is transcendent by nature and who is at the same time immanent by choice and condescension and grace. Only in such a context do we find statements like this: “For this is what the high and lofty One says—he who lives forever, whose name is holy: ‘I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit’ ” (Isa. 57:15).

The monotheistic ideals of Israel’s religion characterized it from the earliest days. Israel’s Creator God is portrayed in majestic grandeur in the very first verse of Genesis. His existence is assumed rather than argued. He is placed outside the universe and above it as its Creator. The view of God taught by the first chapter of Genesis is opposed to an entire phalanx of false philosophies. Against materialism, which teaches that matter is everything and that it is eternal, Genesis 1 teaches that God is eternal, above matter, and the Creator of matter (which is therefore neither eternal nor everything). Against pantheism, which teaches that everything is God or gods, or that God is (or gods are) in everything, Genesis 1 teaches that God is separate from his creation and that he is above it. Against dualism, which teaches that there is a continuing struggle taking place between two more or less equally matched gods or principles, one evil and the other good, Genesis 1 posits one good God who in sequence declares his creative works to be “good” (Gen. 1:4, 9, 12, 18, 21, 25) and concludes by stamping the whole creative week “very good” (1:31). Against polytheism, which teaches that there are many gods who are often at odds with one another, Genesis 1 declares that there is only one beneficent God. No one can doubt that one of the great themes of the Old Testament is its pure, pervasive, unyielding monotheism.

It is also clear, however, that other alternatives competed for the attention and allegiance of God’s children in ancient times. The teachings of the Near Eastern nature religions made their influence felt on the backgrounds and spiritual struggles of the Hebrew people even before the patriarchal period. Joshua 24:2 demonstrates that the ancestors of Abraham were polytheists. Abraham’s Aramean relatives continued to keep statues of deities in their homes, a practice that Jacob’s wife Rachel apparently approved of at one time (Gen. 31:17–35). Jacob himself found it necessary on one occasion to say to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves” (35:2). Indeed, we have no way of knowing whether Abraham himself, the patriarch who is considered by each of the three monotheistic religions previously mentioned to be its founder, was himself a thoroughgoing monotheist. That he was a practical monotheist cannot be denied. God monopolized Abraham to the extent that he had neither time nor room for competing deities, whether real or imaginary. But Abraham’s own personal inclinations may well have been henotheistic rather than monotheistic, because nowhere in the Book of Genesis does he clearly deny the existence of other gods.

Moses is generally believed to be the father of Israelite monotheism. This does not mean that no Israelites were monotheists before him, nor does it mean that all Israelites would be monotheists after him. It simply means that Moses was the first, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to define the nature of God in a clearly monotheistic way. The monotheistic background of Genesis 1 is in full agreement with such statements of Moses as we find in Deuteronomy 4:35, 39: “The LORD is God; besides him there is no other. . . . The LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other.” The first of the Ten Commandments, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exod. 20:3; Deut. 5:7), deals with the temptation to succumb to henotheism or polytheism, a temptation that was a source of constant danger to the Israelites of the Old Testament period down to the time of the exile. The commandment is firm in its insistence that Israel is to have only one object of worship and allegiance: the one true God, the Lord God Almighty.

James Henry Breasted, a great Egyptologist of a former generation, referred to Pharaoh Amunhotep IV, also known as Akhenaten, as the first monotheist in history. It is certainly true that Akhenaten and his family abandoned Egyptian polytheism and worshiped only the sun-disk Aten as the source of all life. But we should also observe that Akhenaten did not deny to his courtiers the questionable privilege of worshiping him as the deified pharaoh. As for the rest of the Egyptian population, they remained either ignorant of or antagonistic toward the new religion that Akhenaten had instituted. We must also note that this so-called monotheism was neither more nor less than sun-worship.

Nevertheless, it is intriguing to speculate as to whether the religion of Akhenaten and Mosaic monotheism are related in any way. If the scholars who believe that the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt occurred in about 1290 B.C. are correct, the boy Moses would have lived in the court of Akhenaten, who ruled over Egypt from about 1377 to about 1361 B.C. It would therefore be possible to look upon the pharaonic religion of this period as a degraded form of the monotheism of Moses. Another option would be to view Mosaic monotheism as a divinely inspired and revealed reaction against the crudities and absurdities of Akhenaten’s faith. In any event, if Moses and Akhenaten were contemporaries they could hardly have avoided discussing together the nature of God, a subject that was so significant in the lives of both of them.

During another critical period in Israel’s history, a contest took place on Mount Carmel between Elijah on the one hand and the “four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah” (1 Kings 18:19) on the other. It soon became evident, however, that the real contest was between the God of Elijah and the Baal of Jezebel. Elijah challenged the false prophets with this ultimatum: “You call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire—he is God” (18:24). The climax of the story leaves no doubt that Baal was no match for the living God whom Elijah served.

But the results of the contest on Mount Carmel were soon forgotten, and the writing prophets from the eighth century B.C. and onward found it necessary to remind their people again and again of the vast gulf that separated the one true God from the idols of his imaginary pagan counterparts. The common noun baal means simply “master” or “husband.” But to avoid all possibility of misunderstanding, the people of Israel were never to refer to the Lord as “my Baal” (Hos. 2:16). The prophets ridiculed idolatry as foolish worship of inanimate objects (4:12; Isa. 2:8; 17:8; 31:7; 44:19; Hab. 2:18–19). Such false gods lack entirely the personal dimension that characterizes genuine deity.

It is true that sometimes the prophets seem to ascribe to pagan gods actions that are appropriate only to living beings. For example, Isaiah tells us that when the Lord comes to Egypt “the idols of Egypt tremble before him” (Isa. 19:1). Later, Jeremiah says concerning the gods of Babylonia that “Bel will be put to shame, Marduk filled with terror. Her images will be put to shame and her idols filled with terror” (Jer. 50:2). Whether we are to understand such statements in a figurative way or whether we are to interpret them as referring to demonic activity underlying false worship is difficult to say. Perhaps there is an element of truth in both explanations. In any case, the contrast between dead idols and the living God is brought into sharp relief in such passages as the following: “Like a scarecrow in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good. . . . But the LORD is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King. When he is angry, the earth trembles; the nations cannot endure his wrath” (10:5, 10).

All the evidence we have leads us to believe that after the destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon’s temple in 586 B.C. the people of Judah were rarely if ever tempted by idolatry. Judah had experienced severe retribution; it would now experience sincere repentance. The people knew they were being punished for their sins, and the sight of the excessive polytheism of Babylonia was revolting to the exiled remnant and helped to make the Jews a truly monotheistic people from that day to this. Judaism today gladly shares with Christianity the divine affirmation of the Scriptures: “This is what the LORD . . . says: ‘I am the LORD, and there is no other. . . . And there is no other god apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me’ ” (Isa. 45:18, 21). Since the sixth century B.C. observant Jews have been thoroughly and uncompromisingly monotheistic.

This fact helps to explain why the Jews of Jesus’ time found it so difficult to accept his messianic claims. He said that he was God’s Son, and such statements seemed blasphemous and worthy of death to his monotheistic countrymen (John 8:48–59; 10:22–39). But the doctrine of the deity of Christ is not at all incompatible with the highest form of monotheism. In fact, hints pointing to a plurality within the personality of God are to be found already in the Old Testament itself. In addition to the Father, the Spirit and the Word were active in creation from the beginning (Gen. 1:1–3), and the Word is none other than Jesus Christ (John 1:1–14). We must allow for progressive revelation as God discloses to us, step by step, his nature and purposes (Heb. 1:1–2). That God is one is a doctrine enunciated clearly and frequently in the Old Testament. That God is three in one is a doctrine that is merely foreshadowed by the Old Testament and that does not burst forth into the clear light of revelation until New Testament times (Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14).

Often mentioned in connection with Old Testament prefigurations of the uniplurality of God is the manifestation of his being that is known as the “angel of God” or the “angel of the Lord.” Interpreters differ widely in their understanding of this divine messenger. Some feel that he was an angel, a finite spirit who executed the commands of God and who was in subjection to God. Others insist that he was a manifestation of God who became a creature, one in essence with God while at the same time becoming different from him, a kind of preincarnate appearance of the Second Person of the Godhead.

While it is difficult to decide between these two views and their various modifications, of which there are many, a fact that has come to the fore in recent years may be of some help. In ancient times a messenger of a royal court carried with him all the credentials of the king himself when he was dispatched on an imperial mission. His personality, his attributes, his commands, while remaining his own, were also the king’s. The royal messenger represented the royal person in every respect. Whereas this may be a poor illustration of the matter at issue, in a similar way the angel of God could refer to God as his sender, and at the same time he could speak as though he himself were God. In such a way the angel of God foreshadowed the uniplurality of the divine nature in the Old Testament period.

At any rate, God did not reveal himself prematurely in clearly defined trinitarian terms in the Old Testament Scriptures. To have done so would have been to provide needless temptations to polytheism in light of the cultures of that early time. The deity of the Messiah and the personality of the Holy Spirit were thus kept in the background of Old Testament teaching. On the other hand, although the New Testament writers clearly affirmed trinitarian...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. Monotheism
• 2. Sovereignty
• 3. Election
• 4. Covenant, 1
• 5. Covenant, 2
• 6. Theocracy
• 7. Law
• 8. Sacrifice
• 9. Faith
• 10. Redemption
• For Further Reading
• Subject Index
• Scripture Index
• About the Author
• Other Books by Author