A LONG TIME MISREPRESENTED GOD (Part 6)

(Exodus 6:3, Acts 17:21-31)
We continue with these series that we developed from the question that was asked by our Christian sister. Two things, however, are important to note: 1. There is what we are saying and 2. what we are not saying.

What we are saying

What we are saying is that since time immemorial, God, who was before there was a universe (Genesis 1:1), has always attempted to reveal himself to the limited mind of human beings. The process has involved him using nature (Genesis 1-2), Prophets, and eventually coming in the flesh and dwelling amidst us (John 1:1-3, 14; Hebrews 1:1-4).

What we call the Bible is a library of books and that is what the Greek word ‘Biblos’ from which we get our English word ‘Bible’ means. The books are records of historical experiences and interventions that happened between man and God in the attempt of this God introducing Himself to Man.

Recently, Jethro asked me why it looks like the Devil has a head-start on God over us? The response was that it is not so. However, ever since man fell away from the relationship between him and his creator (Genesis 3), God has become a stranger to man.

The difference between God and Satan as masters is that God as a master is a provider but Satan as a master is a possessor. Originally, pre-fall, when God was our Master (a period hinted of in Genesis 1-2) he provided man with an opportunity to opt-out of this relationship and informed him (man) of the alternatives outside the existing order (Genesis 2:16-17). When humanity didn’t trust God on the warning about the danger and opted out, here we are.

Under Satan as the master, man is possessed and oppressed to the extent that it takes humanity a hard time to even see the alternative. When we got into the hands of Satan, we were not even granted an opportunity to opt-out. We lost not only a relationship with God but even who He was, was erased and He has to re-introduce Himself to us. The Bible, therefore, is a collection of the records of particular People’s interventions and experiences with this God in the process of Him revealing Himself to beings who not only forgot Him but who knew Him no more.

How we have perceived him, however, is not necessarily who he is or who has intended to be known for. Apostle Paul wrote:

“because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:19-21 NKJ)

Knowing who this God is and who he isn’t is very important for He told us that; it is in that knowledge where eternal life lies (John 17:3). Ever since man fell away from the relationship between him (man) and his creator, the creator became foreign (not just strange but unknown) to man.

However much man fell though, the instincts to search this lost connection with his (man) origin (God the creator) remained strong and man, in the absence of his creator, has always made gods for himself to worship (Isaiah 44:14-21; Psalm 115:4-7). Where man hasn’t created a god for himself, he has established himself as a creator and exercised self-worship. It is at this level of the fall that God came to reveal himself to us and when he came, we incorporated Him into our worldview and instead of Him becoming the only God there is, he became one of the gods. This is the contention between Christianity and all world Religions including those captured in the Biblical text like Judaism itself.

When God attempted to reveal himself through nature, we turned nature into God. Like the primitive worshipers worshiped in nature; trees, rocks, streams of water, animals etc. that were a phenomenon, the modern scientist worships the same nature in the name of truth is exclusively what can be proved in laboratories. Science says, there is no God but only nature, and that is the worldview of Naturalism followed by many.

When God mystically revealed Himself (in an immaterial way) and faith was required to precede evidence in grasping who He was, humanity turned God into an impersonal being who could only be appreciated in an impersonal manner. Little did man know that God being a Spirit means that He is a person, not an impersonal force which acts without purpose or reason. Ever since that misconception of God as the Spirit, man has treated God in Spirit form as a force (Acts 2=Pentecostal Event) even in modern Churches the Holy Spirit is a divine force but not God in his entirety of being.

When God revealed himself to man through experiences, humanity turned those particular experiences into a god and for that matter, God still did not achieve his goal of revelation. It was Swinburne who wrote:

“If there is a God, one might well expect him not merely to concern himself with the progress of the human race by bringing about the occurrence of things prayed for, providing the opportunity for men to do worthwhile things, or providing a revelation at a particular moment in history, or society to continue that revelation; but also perhaps to show himself to and speak to at any rate some of the men whom he has made and who are capable of talking about God and worshiping him. The argument from religious experience claims that this has often occurred; many have experienced God (or some supernatural thing connected with God) and hence knows and can tell us of his existence”

What we are not saying

Our experiences, however, do not necessarily define who God is for these experiences could be as golden as the age of King Solomon but they could also be as dark as those of Job; to assume, therefore, that God is both light and darkness and the source of both (Isaiah 45:7) is at the same time to misrepresent him. We are not saying that God in his entirety has been revealed in the Canonical and extra-canonical experiences and interventions of people through history to-date.

The Bible is not an absolute revelation of God, God in His magnificence and sovereignty has revealed himself in nature, in the experiences of man and man has recorded that in the Biblical text. We are not saying nature is God, our experiences are who God is, nor are we saying God can only be revealed in the text. No, not at all. What we are saying, however, is God can be appreciated in the coherent and cohesive understanding of the bits of His revelation in all the three areas.

The investigation of the revelation of God in all these three areas: 1. Nature, 2. Man’s Experiences and interventions and 3. the record (Bible); is what is done in Bible study. The Beauty of the Bible is that unlike our experiences and interventions and nature as well, only the Bible of the three modes of revelation canonizes (streamlines) the coherent-cohesive theological and ideological understanding of this God. to achieve that, we employ Biblical hermeneutics to this text and only through it, we can get God right despite how the first recipients have presented Him to us.

Biblical Hermeneutics

Biblical Hermeneutics is the science of interpretation of the Bible and the methods of that interpretation. Under this discipline we study the history, anthropology, the text and the words of whatever is reported in the Bible and the process can take us from the Bible to other disciplines like Archeology, History, Literature and Science. Why are we bringing this up under our investigation of the Sodom and Gomorrah fires? The reason is a simple one; because of the structure of the text.
One would ask; what is the need of this Hermeneutics on the Bible?

The answer can be best demonstrated than stated. Take for instance; the story of THE FIRES OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH is contextually found in Genesis chapters 18-19. It all begins with ‘God’ visiting the family of Abraham as three men (Genesis 18) we are told. These three men are presented somehow in an impersonal-personal manner. They are impersonal in a sense that they appear from nowhere, and they are personal in a sense that they could be seen and at the same time it is recorded that they ate what was provided for them as guests to this family.

How then do we confirm that Abraham saw the same God we worship today? How do know that this very God we worship today destroyed people for sinning sexually? We need to utilize what we call the ‘Redaction Tool’ in the discipline of Biblical Hermeneutics under the Hermeneutics section of ‘Redaction Criticism.’

According to Encyclopedia Britannica; “Redaction criticism, in the study of biblical literature, method of criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the New Testament that examines the way the various pieces of the tradition have been assembled into the final literary composition by an author or editor. The arrangement and modification of these pieces, according to this method’s proponents, can reveal something of the author’s intentions and the means, by which he hoped to achieve them”

The Bible as literature piece is believed to be a collection of the record of experiences and interventions that happened between a God who wanted to reveal Himself to man and how man perceived those events. The Bible is not a mystical book like the Quran or other religious books that fell from Heaven, the Bible is a product of a participative work between man and God (2Samuel 23:2; 2Peter 1:20; Jeremiah 36:4; Jeremiah 45:1; 2Timothy 3:16; 2Peter 3:15-16; Luke 1:1-3).

As God reveals Himself to man, man records and believes God not for who God is or for who intended to be understood but God is understood in the existing capacity and exposure of the recipient of that revelation.

This is why God in the Bible is represented as the cause of both evil and good and it upon us to put the record straight based on the current revelation and light we have about the same God reported about in the text or other modes of revelation.

The individual who traces recorded thematic experiences and interventions between man and God through redaction criticism is the one known as the ‘Redactor’. Luke was a redactor and let me quote him so that you understand who a redactor is:

“Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.” (Luke 1:1-4 NKJ)

The role of the Redactor with the historical recordings of the experiences and interventions between man and God is to shape and mould theses narratives to express coherent-cohesive theological and ideological goals of these experiences and interventions (Revelation) between man and God. The Redactor does not change the story either does he edit the details but rather tracks the consistent theological and ideological themes that present God for who he is as opposed to the manner he has been packaged by those whose perception then was limited.

God bless you, I invoke Truth, Wisdom and Faith
Priest M.I.T White
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)
Questioning to Believe, Believing to Live