Editor’s Note: The following is the complete chapter as it appeared in R. Scott Clark, ed., Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry: Essays by the Faculty of Westminster Seminary California (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2007), 61–87. In 2021, the publisher returned the publication rights to the copyright holder and the chapter is presented here as a service to the public by the Heidelberg Reformation Association. The material is copyrighted. All Rights Reserved. You are welcome to link to this chapter but you are not entitled to reproduce it in any way without permission of the copyright holder.
§
Introduction
According to E. P. Sanders, the core theology of intertestamental Judaism follows a pattern that he calls “covenantal nomism,” a view that he explains as follows: “‘Covenant’ stands for God’s grace in election (‘getting in’); ‘nomism’ for the requirement of obedience to the law (nomos in Greek: ‘staying in’).”1 In other words, according to Sanders, God graciously chose Israel to be his partner in a covenant relationship at the beginning, without any merit on their part, but once that relationship was initiated then Israel’s obedience to the law became a necessary condition for continuing the relationship. To quote Sanders again: “Salvation is not earned by obedience, although it may be forfeited by disobedience.”2 To be sure, grace continues to
1. E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE–66 CE (London: SCM, 1992), 262.
2. E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (London: SCM, 1977), 371.
[61]
be a factor in that obedience. The Lord graciously provides forgiveness through the sacrificial system for those who inevitably fell short of perfection, and his mercy would temper his justice, yet without faithfulness on Israel’s part the covenant relationship between her and the Lord could not be maintained.3
It is not my purpose to assess the correctness of Sanders’s version of covenantal nomism as a description of intertestamental Jewish theology.4 It may be that some, or even many, Jews accepted covenantal nomism during this period. Of more concern is the rise of similar formulations within the modern church. So, for example, Rich Lusk writes (with reference to the reclothing of the high priest Joshua in Zech 3): “The initial clothing in white is received by faith alone. This is the beginning of Joshua’s justification. But if Joshua is to remain justified—that is, if the garments he has received are not to become re-soiled with his iniquity—he must be faithful. Thus, initial justification is by faith alone; subsequent justifications include obedience.”5
My discussion will focus on the accuracy of covenantal nomism as a description of the Old Testament relations between God and his people and in particular on the pastoral crisis that faced God’s people during and after the exile. How does the experience of exile and return alter the idea that God’s Old Testament people “got in” the covenant by grace and “stayed in” that relationship by their faithful obedience to the law? Can covenantal nomism account for the persistence of God’s relationship with his people after the exile?6 After Israel’s unfaithfulness had led to the ultimate sanction of exile, did the prophets promise covenant blessing dependent on human faithfulness, or did they look for something new in which God himself would fulfill the covenant conditions?
3. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 275–78.
4. For a detailed interaction, see D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism (2 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001–4).
5. Rich Lusk, “Future Justification to the Doers of the Law,” http://www.hornes.org/ theologia/content/rich_lusk/future_justification_to_the_doers_of_the_law.htm. See also the similar stress on the centrality of our faithfulness in Steve M. Schlissel, “AResponsetoCovenant and Salvation,” in The Auburn Avenue Theology, Pros and Cons: Debating the Federal Vision (ed. E. Calvin Beisner; Fort Lauderdale, FL: Knox Theological Seminary, 2004), 89–92.
6. As we shall see, there is a distinction between the relationship itself and the blessings associated with that relationship, such as occupation of the land.
[62]
Maintenance of Marriage
At first sight, covenantal nomism may seem to be strongly supported by the analogy of a marriage relationship that the Old Testament uses to describe the relationship between the Lord and Israel.7 In marriage, a husband is not obligated to choose a particular woman as his wife: his choice of her is a matter of unmerited favor, especially if he is of higher social status than she is. Yet once he has chosen this wife, he is bound to her by the covenant relationship, as long as she is faithful. A good husband recognizes that his wife is not perfect and makes allowance for her failings. Minor imperfections do not nullify the marriage covenant. Yet if she is persistently unfaithful, then the covenant relationship is broken; the husband is not bound by his earlier commitment, and the relationship may legitimately be dissolved through divorce. It could well be argued therefore that the wife’s faithfulness is necessarily a key element in maintaining the marital relationship and, by analogy, that our faithfulness is a key element in maintaining our relationship with God,8 even though the initiation of that relationship is entirely of his grace.9
7. This marriage covenant finds its full expression at Sinai in the formula “I will be your God and you will be my people” (Exod 6:7; Lev 26:12). This formula is parallel to the ancient Near Eastern marriage contract: “I will be to you a husband and you will be to me a wife”; see Moshe Weinfeld, “Berith—Covenant vs. Obligation,” Biblica 56 (1975): 125.
8. Thus, Don Garlington asserts: “The very existence of the marriage-covenant is contingent on the righteous/faithful behavior of its partners”; see his review of D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 1: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001) at http://www.thepaulpage.com/Variegated_Nomism.pdf.
9. It is a matter of ongoing debate whether the word grace should be used in line with conventional English usage, as many theologians do, to describe God’s unmerited favor. Thus, Louis Berkhof defines grace as follows: “The fundamental idea is, that the blessings graciously bestowed are freely given, and not in consideration of any claim or merit. . . . In most of the passages, however, in which the word charis is used in the New Testament, it signified the unmerited operation of God in the heart of man, effected through the agency of the Holy Spirit”; see Systematic Theology (4th ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949), 427 (emphasis added). Similarly the New Geneva Study Bible note on Gal 1:3 states, “‘Grace’ translates the Greek charis, which means ‘an undeserved act of kindness.’” Other Reformed theologians insist that the word grace should be reserved to describe “demerited favor,” God’s mercy shown to sinners. See, e.g., Meredith G. Kline, “Covenant Theology under Attack,” http://www.upper-register.com/ct_gospel/ct_under _attack.html. Equally insistently, though from a different perspective, is Jerry Bridges, “What Is Grace,” RTS Quarterly http://www.rts.edu/quarterly/fall98/grace.html. There are certainly advantages in clarity if the word is kept for this more restricted sense, since the broader sense has sometimes been misused in modern theological discussions to blur important distinctions
[63]
Ezekiel 16
How, though, is this analogy worked out in Scripture? The description of the Lord’s relationship with Jerusalem in Ezekiel 16 explains the analogy of marriage to a faithless partner.10 The undeserved nature of the relationship is strongly stressed at the outset. Jerusalem was born from pagan Canaanite roots (16:3) and when the Lord found her, she was an abandoned infant, left exposed in the field to die (16:5).11 She had no inherent beauty or attractiveness and no automatic claim on God’s compassion. Left to herself, she would inevitably have died. Yet the Lord did not leave her to her natural fate. Instead, he showed
between the biblical covenants. It should also be recognized, however, that the broader sense is a traditional and legitimate rendering of the biblical word חֵן, which has a broad semantic domain. Most commonly חֵן describes favor shown from a superior to an inferior, without the necessary connotation of demerit; see Gen 39:4 AV: “grace,” where Potiphar’s favor to Joseph actually reflects his diligent service and success; and Prov 3:34 NIV and ESV margin: “grace,” where it describes an attitude that God shows to the humble but not to the mocker. Modern translations have followed a dynamic-equivalent approach to translating this word, rendering it by a series of English equivalents such as “favor” or “charm,” yet they have generally retained the adjective “gracious” to express the derivative חַנּוּן: this attribute of God likewise describes favor shown to those without claim upon it, rather than favor shown to those who have forfeited God’s favor (e.g., Exod 22:27 [MT 22:26]). On this and related words, see T. E. Fretheim, “חנן,” in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (ed. W. A. VanGemeren; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), 2.203–6. This varied biblical usage suggests that, at a minimum, we should endeavor to be clear which use of the term we are adopting and recognize that others may use the word in a different sense, without necessarily compromising important doctrines. For the sake of simplicity, I use the word in its conventional sense in this essay, in line with the usage of Sanders and others, rather than in the more technical sense advocated by Kline and Bridges.
10. Jerusalem here stands for the southern kingdom, just as Samaria stands for the northern kingdom in Ezek 16:46; see Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20 (Anchor Bible 22; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), 274. To be sure, some aspects of the description are particularly fitting for the city of Jerusalem, whose roots in Canaanite culture predate her capture by David, yet there is no ultimate dichotomy in Ezekiel’s thinking between the city and the southern kingdom. Together with her northern neighbor, the sisters have a history of rebellion against God that stretches all the way back to Egypt (Ezek 23:27).
11. This is not as apparent to our modern Western sensibilities as it would have been to the original audience. For us it would be unthinkable to find an abandoned infant and leave it to its fate beside the road. In the ancient world, however, the abandonment of girl babies was a common, if unpleasant, fact of life, and most people had no choice but to leave them to their doom. An analogy in our modern world are the many orphaned street children around the world who are malnourished and uncared for. Christian believers and ministries adopt and care for some of these children, yet the scale of the problem far exceeds people’s ability to relieve it. As a result, Christians in those locations may be faced regularly with the sight of desperate children whose needs they simply cannot meet, even though they know that without help they are likely to die. Our comfortable location may shield us from these realities, which Old Testament Israel would have recognized as familiar.
[64]
her undeserved favor, adopting her just as she was, covered in blood (16:6). He cared for all of her needs and married her when she came of age (16:7–8). Everything she could have wished for was given to her by the Lord: fine food, jewels, and costly garments. She contributed nothing of her own to the relationship. This covenant (16:8) was certainly one that Israel entered by grace.
Having entered by grace, Jerusalem’s subsequent behavior became an issue in the relationship. Far from showing faithfulness to her covenant husband, she was the epitome of unfaithfulness. She took the very gifts that the Lord had given her and spent them on her adulterous affairs. She used her clothing to make pagan places of worship and her jewelry to fashion idols (16:16–17). Jerusalem offered the food the Lord had given her to feed the idols she had made and her embroidered garments to dress them (16:18–19). Even the children she had borne the Lord were offered up to the idols (16:20–21). Instead of behaving like a faithful wife, she acted worse than a prostitute: at least prostitutes have a financial motive for their sin, but Jerusalem herself paid her lovers to participate in her abominations (16:32–34). Through her persistent pagan idolatry and covenant-breaking relationships with the nations (Ezek 17), the unfaithfulness of God’s people knew no bounds.
If the perspective of covenantal nomism is correct and if staying in the covenant is dependent upon obedience, such behavior as Israel had exhibited throughout her history must necessarily bring the covenant to an end. Indeed, the consequences of her disobedience are severe: Jerusalem will be handed over to her lovers, who will strip her and stone her and hack her in pieces (16:37–40). The Lord’s wrath and jealous anger will be poured out upon her, and he will recompense her for her deeds (16:38–43). Yet this is not the end of Israel’s relationship with her God. Israel’s breaking of the terms of the covenant (16:59) cannot in the end destroy the covenant!12 The Israelites will experience the curses that the covenant threatened, but the covenant relationship itself will not be annulled by their unfaithfulness.
12. On this phrase, see Moshe Weinfeld, “בְּרִית,” in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (ed. G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren; trans. J. T. Willis; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 2.261–62.
[65]
The reason for this surprising turn of events is that the Lord is not like Israel.13 Even though Israel has not remembered the days of her youth (16:22, 43), the Lord will remember the covenant he made with her in those days.14 The conditionality of the Sinai covenant applies only to the experience of the blessings of the covenant, not to the underlying relationship itself. Far from washing his hands of Israel because of her unfaithfulness, the Lord will establish an everlasting covenant with her (16:60, 62). Although Israel has been unfaithful and has provided plentiful grounds for divorce, the Lord will not divorce her, because he is faithful.15 Israel entered the covenant by grace, and she will remain in it by the Lord’s faithfulness—not by her own.
Hosea 2, Isaiah 50, Jeremiah 3
Essentially the same reading of the relationship between Israel and the Lord is evident in other texts. In the book of Hosea, the prophet is instructed to marry an adulterous wife in order to provide a prophetic sign act for the people (1:2). The basis of Hosea’s choice of wife was certainly not in any merit that she brought to the relationship but in an act of grace. She was not transformed into a model housewife by his self-sacrificial love, either. On the contrary, she continued to act shamefully with her lovers (2:5). She ascribed the good gifts she had received from the Lord to her idols (2:8). Because of that sin, she faced punishment for her sins in the present, and their husband-wife relationship was temporarily suspended (2:2). Yet divorce could not
13. In view of the contrast in what follows, it is possible that Ezek 16:59 ought to be translated as a question: “Will I deal with you as you have dealt [with me]?”—the implied answer being no, as is evident in what follows; see Leslie C. Allen, Ezekiel 1–19 (Word Biblical Commentary 28; Dallas: Word, 1994), 232.
14. “The covenant I made with you in the days of your youth” (Ezek 16:60) is a reference to the Sinai covenant, as the parallel passage in Jer 31:31–34 makes clear; see Daniel I. Block, Ezekiel 1–24 (New International Commentary on the Old Testament; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 517. To the evidence adduced by Block, we may add that Israel’s “youth” elsewhere in Ezekiel describes her time in Egypt (compare 23:3, 8, 19, 21).
15. This thought is the fulcrum of hope for the writer of Lamentations. Faced with evidence of God’s judgment curse all around him, he clings to this thought: “Because of the steadfast love [חֶסֶד] of the Lord, we are not cut off; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lam 3:22–23). Compare the equally surprising formula in 2 Tim 2:12–13: “If we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.”
[66]
be the end of the story. Ultimately the Lord would restore her to himself and betroth her to himself forever (2:16–20). That renewed relationship is described as a covenant (2:18) in which the blessings of the relationship promised at Sinai would be experienced in fullness (contrast Hos 2:22 with Deut 28:51). Israel entered the relationship with the Lord by grace, but the relationship will stand only because of the Lord’s faithfulness—not her own.
In the book of Isaiah, the Lord asks the people: “Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce, with which I sent her away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away” (50:1). The implied answer to the prophet’s question is clear: it was not the Lord who brought about the present breach in the relationship but Israel, through her transgressions. Nonetheless, even her iniquities and transgressions cannot ultimately destroy the marriage. The Lord has remained faithful to his bride, and as a result the prophet can speak comforting words to Zion regarding her future (51:3–4). The Lord will raise up a servant, who through his faithfulness will bring deliverance to his unfaithful bride (50:2–9).
Even in the book of Jeremiah, where the breach between the Lord and his people is stated in the strongest possible terms, the relationship cannot ultimately be severed by their unfaithfulness. Israel and Judah have been relentless in their adultery (3:1–3, 6–10), to the point where the Lord actually gave the northern kingdom her certificate of divorce (3:8). Judah too deserves the same treatment, for she has behaved even worse than her unfaithful sister (3:11). Yet even this is not the end for the Lord and his people: the Lord remains their husband (3:14), and so he commits himself to bring about a great reversal, not just for Judah but for Israel as well (3:18)! Even though in a human marriage such a thing could not be contemplated—a divorced and unfaithful wife returning to her long-suffering husband (3:1)—such is the Lord’s indissoluble unity with his people that this turn of events not only may happen in this case, but inevitably must. The marriage relationship between God and his people cannot ultimately be destroyed by the unfaithfulness of the bride.
[67]
Renovation of the Covenant
Nonetheless, the future prospect after the exile is not merely a return to the status ante quo. It would be no comfort to tell a generation who had experienced the full weight of the covenant curses for their disobedience and that of their forefathers that future blessing depended on their future faithfulness. Rather, the prophets repeatedly pointed their hearers to a new intervention of God that would radically alter the constitution of the people.
Jeremiah 31
Thus, the prophet Jeremiah spoke of an act of God so profound that it can be termed a “new covenant” (31:31–34). This new covenant is, in some ways, radically not like the covenant made at Sinai. It will not be a covenant whose terms can be broken through the unfaithfulness of God’s people (31:32), thereby bringing curse on themselves. It will be a covenant that involves an internal transformation of the people, such that the law is placed in their minds and written on their hearts (31:33), not simply on tablets of stone. It will be a covenant in which the knowledge of God will be universal among his people from least to greatest (31:34), not mediated through Moses and the prophets. In establishing this covenant, the Lord will forgive his people’s sin and remember their iniquity no more (31:34).
Yet at the same time the new covenant is, in other ways, simply the fulfillment of the Sinai covenant, especially its central promise: “I will be their God and they shall be my people” (Jer 31:33; cf. Exod 6:7; Lev 26:12).16 The result of this new covenant will be the fulfillment of all of the blessings of the Sinai covenant and a lifting of all of its curses. The people’s yoke will be broken off (Jer 30:8; cf. Lev 26:13); they will have peace and security, with no one to make them afraid (Jer 30:10; cf. Lev 26:6); they will experience healing (Jer 30:17; cf. Exod 15:26) and harvest the grain, new wine and oil, and the young of the flock (Jer 31:12; cf. Deut 28:51). In other words, the new cov-
16. This is a distinctly Sinaitic covenant formula, not found prior to that time in Scripture, although it builds on and develops the promise to Abraham: “I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you” (Gen 17:7).
[68]
enant anticipates a time when the blessings of the (conditional) Mosaic covenant will be received unconditionally, through a sovereign act of God’s mercy and grace.17
The same is true with respect to the Davidic covenant. The prophet had earlier announced the complete rejection of the Davidic king in the person of Jehoiachin (Jer 22:24–27). Hope was to be found in neither Jehoiachin nor his successor, Zedekiah (24:1–10). Yet even though the persistent unfaithfulness of David’s heirs had now led to comprehensive judgment, so that they themselves would die in captivity, the prophet promised a renewal of the Davidic covenant in the days to come. A righteous branch would sprout from David’s line and bring about the restoration of Jerusalem (33:15–16).18 Neither God’s covenant with David nor his covenant with the descendants of Jacob could ultimately be broken, in spite of all of the unfaithfulness of the human parties, for these covenants were as unbreakable as God’s covenant with night and day (33:19–26).
Ezekiel 34
Exactly identical themes emerge in the book of Ezekiel. The prophet speaks of a covenant of peace (בְּרִית שָׁלוֹם) that would bring about a new future for Israel (34:25–31). In line with Jeremiah, Ezekiel foresaw a future of Mosaic covenant blessing for the people, promised precisely to those whom he has been at considerable pains to reveal to be breakers of the Mosaic covenant. No longer would they undergo the curses of the Sinai covenant that they had experienced while they have been under the judgment of God: wild animals, drought,
17. William J. Dumbrell, “The Prospect of Unconditionality in the Sinaitic Covenant,” in Israel’s Apostasy and Restoration: Essays in Honor of Roland K. Harrison (ed. Avraham Gileadi; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988), 142. Meredith Kline similarly speaks of there being “grace along with the law” in the Deuteronomic covenant; see By Oath Consigned (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 19.
18. The import of Isa 11:1 is similar: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.” We so often focus on the positive side of that promise that we miss the certainty of judgment it conveys. The future of the line of David ends up in a stump, with the tree cut down. Only after the tree’s future has been ended, humanly speaking, will there be a divine renewal of the promise. By calling the source of this branch the “stump of Jesse” rather than the “stump of David” the discontinuity in the renewal of the promise is emphasized as well as the continuity; see John Calvin, Isaiah 1–32 (1843; trans. W. Pringle; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 372.
[69]
famine, and the sword (Lev 26:14–35). Now they will experience the blessings of that covenant: safety, rain in its season, fruitfulness, and peace (Ezek 34:25–30; cf. Lev 26:4–13).19 This state of experiencing the blessings that flow from a harmonious relationship with God makes this distinctively a “covenant of peace.” It is a new covenant in the sense that they will in future experience the blessings promised in the original (Mosaic) covenant rather than the curses merited by their breaches in the covenant.
What is more, the blessings to be experienced are not limited to the Mosaic covenant. The blessings of the Davidic covenant will also finally be established. In place of the monarchy divided by sin, they will be united under one shepherd. In place of an undistinguished procession of monarchs, they will be given a ruler after God’s own heart, a new David. In place of famine, plague, drought, and sword, they will see a new level of peace and prosperity so that they will no longer bear the reproach of the nations (Ezek 34:29).20 Then they will know that the Lord their God is with them—for blessing and not for curse—and that they are his people. They will be his sheep and he will be their God, the harmonious relationship celebrated in Psalm 100:3. In fact, Ezekiel 34:31 concludes: “You will be ‘Adam’ and I will be your God,” which may suggest that the scope of the prophet’s vision reaches even further back to affirm the ultimate restoration of the blessings intended in the original covenant of creation.21 Adam’s
19. For a full table of parallels between Ezek 34:25–30 and Lev 26:4–13, see Daniel I. Block, Ezekiel 25–48 (New International Commentary on the Old Testament; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 304.
20. The absence of the blessing of victory in war may be due to the new community being now directly under divine protection, as becomes clear in Ezek 38–39; see Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 21–37 (Anchor Bible 22A; New York: Doubleday, 1997), 707.
21. To date, I have yet to see any alternative adequate explanation of the Masoretic Text. אָדָם is absent from the Septuagint, and so it is often read as a clumsy secondary gloss. As such, it would simply identify the Lord’s flock as being human, connecting this passage with Ezek 36:38; see W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel 25–48 (trans. James D. Martin; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 221. Alternatively, it is argued that the word calls attention to the depth and greatness of the divine condescension in meeting with man who is taken from the earth and returns to it again; see E. W. Hengstenberg, The Prophecies of Ezekiel Elucidated (trans. A. C. Murphy and J. G. Murphy; Edinburgh: Clark, 1874), 305. Yet in a context that has just mentioned the fulfillment of the covenant with David and the covenant made at Sinai, it seems that a reference to אָדָם may well be more than simply a random insertion. In fact, the connection with 36:38 may strengthen the Adamic overtones in both passages, since 36:35 promises that the future land will become like the garden of Eden.
[70]
original act of unfaithfulness will be undone through a divine act of salvation on the Lord’s part.
The central point being made by the prophet is clear: the blessings promised in all of God’s covenants—conditional and unconditional— will ultimately be experienced by God’s people. This will take place not through their faithfulness but through a sovereign act of God’s grace in providing for them a new and faithful shepherd.
Ezekiel 36
This idea is developed further in Ezekiel 36:16–38. The motivation for God’s wrath in the past was the unfaithfulness of the people (36:17). They had defiled the land by means of bloodshed and idolatry, making it a place unfit for divine habitation by the living God (36:18). God therefore had no choice but to bring upon them the curses of the covenant they had broken, the Mosaic covenant, in wrath scattering them among the nations and the lands, just as he had threatened (Deut 29:22–28 [MT 29:21–27]).
This action, however, created a new problem for God. He had promised to bring this people, who were called by his name, into the land of Canaan to possess it. He had established a relationship between himself, his people, and the land (Ezek 36:28). Yet now the nations could see that the Lord’s people were absent from his land (36:21). The special relationship promised in the Mosaic covenant and symbolized by the tabernacle, the visible dwelling of God in their midst, had been broken. The conclusion that would be drawn by the surrounding nations was natural: the Lord’s power was insufficient to bring about that which he promised. Thus, as long as Israel was scattered among the nations, she continually profaned the divine name (36:20). This was now not because of anything particular they did. Rather, she profaned God’s name simply by being there in exile, instead of in the land of promise!
This brings Ezekiel to the reasons for God’s future mercy. If there had been no other reasoning involved for God than the necessity of dealing with Israel’s sin, permanent wrath would have sufficed. Israel could simply and deservedly have been blotted out from the pages of history for her unfaithfulness as an example of the power
[71]
of God’s holiness and his anger against sin. The Israelites of Ezekiel’s day, however, were not completely destroyed. Why not? Even though he has no compassion (חָמַל) on Israel, the Lord will nonetheless have concern (חָמַל) for his name, which he had inextricably linked to Israel by entering covenant with them. Because of that sovereign, irrevocable act at Sinai, mercy not only may but must be shown to Israel. The honor of God’s name must be vindicated by a show of power among the nations when he brings Israel back to her land (36:21–23). The Lord will act, not for Israel’s sake, but for the sake of his own name.
This act through which God’s power is demonstrated involves not merely bringing Israel back physically to the land but also a total change in her nature. His people must be redeemed not merely outwardly but inwardly, effectively. First, Israel will indeed be gathered and returned from the nations to her own land (36:24). Then she will be sprinkled with clean water, symbolizing her cleansing from all her past impurities and idolatries, the things that had made the land unclean (Ezek 36:25; cf. Lev 15).
This outward act of initiation is then to be followed by a deeper, internal change, whereby Israel’s heart and spirit will be made new. Unresponsive, unyielding stone will be replaced by warm, living, responsive flesh (Ezek 36:26). That which has been defiled will be made clean. The Spirit of God, who brings life and power, will indwell them and create in her both the will and the ability to follow God’s decrees and laws (36:27). Then, finally, she will be fit to live in God’s land and be his people, and he in turn will not be ashamed to be called her God (36:28). Then Israel will experience the blessings of the Mosaic covenant, the fruitfulness of the land, rather than experiencing the covenant curse of famine that had made them a reproach among the nations (36:30). Such a salvation will not bring about pride in the renewed nation but rather a profound sense of shame, for she will realize that her salvation is not something she has merited or deserved through her faithfulness. Rather, it is a free gift of sovereign grace. Nothing short of such radical divine intervention could have saved such a people.
The Lord’s favor toward his people does not flow from this inner transformation but is the cause of it. This change in her status is
[72]
explicitly not for Israel’s sake or based on her deeds, but quite the contrary (36:31–32). Her ways continue to be evil and wicked, yet because of the Lord’s concern for the glory of his name, he will sprinkle his defiled people with clean water, making them clean and able to stand in his sight (36:25)—“justified,” to use the language of systematic theology. The subsequent inner transformation, “sanctification,” flows out of that prior act of God as its fruit. Having cleansed them from their sins in a single day (36:33), the Lord then causes his Spirit to indwell his people and transform them from the inside out (36:26–27).
In addition to the act of self-glorification that results in the restored people being returned to the land, God will also restore the land to a “better-than-original” state, thus fulfilling his purpose in creation. It will become “like the garden of Eden,” the ultimate symbol of fertility and fruitfulness (Ezek 36:35; cf. Isa 51:3; Joel 2:3), but the garden land will be filled with restored cities: the places that once were torn down and desolate will be inhabited and fortified (Ezek 36:35). In place of the one original אָדָם and his wife, the new garden land will be filled with “flocks of אָדָם,” numerous people who will fill the cities to overflowing (36:38). The fertility and fruitfulness will thus encompass the people as well as the land itself, to the point where it will be as crowded as Jerusalem used to be on the great annual festival occasions, when her streets were crammed with a mass of people and animals (36:38). The end is thus more than a return to the beginning. God’s original plan for humanity will find a fulfillment in a way that incorporates and gathers up all of the Lord’s mighty acts in redemptive history.
Transformation of the People
Ezekiel 36 pictures the transformation of the people to make them fit for the land God is giving them. This transformation is not, however, something that will take place automatically as a result of the experience of exile and return, but will require a distinct act of God’s sovereign power so that both his righteousness and his mercy are satisfied.
[73]
Making the Dead Live: Ezekiel 37
The experience of judgment in the exile, when recognized as the consequence of the people’s sins, opened up the very real risk of despair. Thus, the people of Ezekiel’s day were saying, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off” (37:11). They felt themselves to be alienated from God, dead in their transgressions and sins.22 The prophet’s answer was neither to question their assessment of their own state—the bones are indeed very dry and very scattered—nor to exhort them to try harder, but rather to look for a great work of the Lord whereby he would take these dry bones and bring them to life, setting his Spirit within them and commissioning them for his service (37:1–10). The experience that the people need is one that the prophet has already personally experienced: when he was confronted by the majesty of God he was twice prostrated by it, and each time the Spirit entered him and raised him to his feet, just as happens to the bones (1:28; 2:2; 3:23–24). He is himself a kind of firstfruits of this cosmic change.23 This change is self-evidently from God: dry bones can contribute nothing to their resuscitation, but just as God’s life-giving breath first brought Adam to life, so his Spirit can bring about new creation from the dead.
Making the Defiled Clean: Haggai 2
The exiles not only needed resurrection from the dead, they also needed a foundational change in their status before God. They were defiled people who had first to be made clean before any of their works could be accepted. The order of these two acts of God is irreversible: first the people must be made clean and acceptable in God’s sight; only after that could the process of being transformed into a new obedience be begun.24
22. Perhaps, to paraphrase the title of Krister Stendahl’s famous essay, we should speak of “the apostle Ezekiel and the introspective conscience of the exiles.” This might help to correct the notion that the concept of people feeling the weight of the law’s condemnation and asking how they may be made right with a holy God is somehow a relatively modern Western notion.
23. See Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel (NIV Application Commentary; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 427–30.
24. Purification is likewise a key issue in Ezek 40–48. See ibid., 470–86.
[74]
This is apparent in Haggai 2, where the prophet is instructed to ask the priests for a “torah” (legal decision). The question he posed is as follows: if someone carries some consecrated meat in the fold of his garment (perhaps the leftovers of a fellowship meal) and there it touches some nonconsecrated items, do they become consecrated? The answer is no: sanctity cannot be so easily transferred (2:12). If, however, these same things come in contact with something defiled, they do become defiled. Defilement is easily contracted, while holiness cannot be conveyed so easily (2:13).
The point of this apparently arcane theological discussion emerges in the following verses. The people of Haggai’s day are themselves defiled, which results in whatever they offer the Lord itself becoming automatically defiled (2:14). Because the people themselves were unclean, their offerings became defiled by contact with them and were therefore unacceptable in God’s sight. The people must themselves have their status in God’s sight changed before their offerings could be accepted by God. That change in status had already begun with the refounding of the temple on that very day.25 From then on, now that God had once again established his dwelling in their midst, they would experience blessing in place of the former curse.
Making the Defiled Clean: Zechariah 3
The same idea of a cleansing act of God that would change the status of the exiles is developed further in Zechariah 3. There the high priest Joshua was depicted as standing before the Lord in a defiled state. His clothing is not merely filthy, as most English translations render it. It is literally “excrement soiled” (צוֺאִים), which means that it is intrinsically defiling (3:3). This presents a problem not just for Joshua as an individual but for the whole people: if he is unfit to stand before God as their mediator and intercessor on the Day of Atonement, then the whole sacrificial system will be compromised.
25. The twenty-fourth day of the ninth month of the second year of Darius, the date of the oracle in Hag 2, was apparently the day when the temple was formally refounded; see C. L. Meyers and E. M. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8 (Anchor Bible 25B; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987), 63. For the significance of God’s sanctuary as a sign of the new order, see Ezek 37:26.
[75]
Meanwhile the scene itself is a courtroom setting, with the Angel of the Lord as judge and the Accuser (הַשָּׂטָן) as prosecuting attorney (3:1). It seems that this open-and-shut case against Joshua must lead to his exclusion from the presence of a holy God, yet the Accuser never gets to present his arguments. Instead, the presiding authority, the Angel of the Lord, rules any and all charges out of order, because Jerusalem is the Lord’s elect (3:2). God’s choice of Jerusalem, evidenced by his bringing Joshua out of the fire of the exile safely, means that no further charges can be entertained against him.
Having judicially declared Joshua immune from prosecution, the Lord acts to remove Joshua’s iniquity. His excrement-soiled clothes are stripped off, and he is clothed in festival garments (3:4). In order to stand before the judge what is needed is not a neutral nakedness, but pure clothing. Since his filthy garments represent iniquity (עָוֹן) (3:4), his festival garments can represent only a new righteousness, given to him at the orders of the judge as a gift.26 The act of reclothing is completed by adding a clean turban (צָנִיף) (3:5), which is not distinctively priestly clothing; rather, it has overtones of glory and even royalty (Isa 3:23; 62:3). This is literally the crowning moment of the whole ceremony: Joshua is reclothed in ceremonially pure, festival garments in the presence of the Angel of the Lord as a sign of God’s acceptance of him—and in him of the people he represented.
Joshua’s reclothing is not an end in itself: he is now fitted to serve, and so he is charged with a task: “If you walk in my ways and if you keep my charge, and if you also judge my house and guard my courts,27
26. This clearly disproves Wright’s statement that “if we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas that can be passed across the courtroom”; see N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 98. Here in Zechariah, precisely in a courtroom setting, we have the defendant’s defilement removed at the order of the judge and replaced by an alien righteousness. If that is not forensic imputation, then I do not know what would qualify as such.
27. In Hebrew conditional clauses, it is not always clear where the protasis ends and the apodosis begins. Does the “then” clause begin after “if you keep my charge” (with most English translations) or after “if you guard my courts” (with many commentators)? I chose the latter translation since וְגַם does not normally begin the apodosis of a conditional clause; see David L. Petersen, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8 (Old Testament Library; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 203; and Wolter H. Rose, Zemah and Zerubbabel: Messianic Expectations in the Early Postexilic Period (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 69.
[76]
then I will grant to you access [or men who go]28 among these who stand [before me]” (3:7). The first two requirements are very general ways of describing faithful behavior within a covenant context, while the second pair identifies what that behavior requires of a faithful priest.29 Joshua is to judge God’s house and guard his courts, that is, to ensure that the worship in the temple is pure and undefiled by idolatry (cf. Ezek 44:23–24). If he does these things, then he will be granted privileged access to the Lord. The exact meaning of the word access is uncertain: it may be that the access is mediated by angelic messengers, but however the word is translated, Joshua is promised unusually direct communication with the divine council. The important point is that what is dependent upon his faithfulness is not his standing in the covenant community but the experience of extraordinary blessing.30
Even such extraordinary blessing on Joshua is merely a shadow of things to come, for the very existence of Joshua and his fellow priests after the exile was a sign of God’s blessing (Zech 3:8), a blessing that had far more to give than the people had yet experienced. Specifically, the future blessing involved the coming of a figure named “my servant, the Branch” (3:8), and the complete and instantaneous removal of the iniquity of this land (3:9). When that happened, the complete blessing of the restored (Sinai) covenant relationship would be experienced: each man will invite his neighbor under his vine and under his fig tree. The fertility and peace of the land will be fully restored to levels unknown since the height of the Solomonic empire (1 Kgs 4:25 [MT 5:1]; see also Mic 4:4).
28. Translation of מַהְלְכִים is uncertain since it is a unique form. In the singular, it means “journey” or “walkway” but neither of those fit here. Rose suggests that instead of rendering it as a noun meaning “access,” it should be identified as a piel participle with unusual vocalization, meaning “men who go” (Zemah and Zerubbabel, 74–79). This is how the ancient versions translated it. The end result of this translation would still be that Joshua had unusual access to the presence of God, albeit in a more mediated form.
29. See Moshe Weinfeld, “The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 90 (1970): 186.
30. Contra, e.g., Lusk, “Future Justification to the Doers of the Law”: “This gift is not given apart from the requirement of obedience. Joshua can only continue to stand in the Lord’s presence if he obeys the Lord (3:6).” “Standing in the Lord’s presence” in Zech 3:7 has more in common with the privilege of the prophets than of a normal Israelite and is thus clearly a blessing beyond mere salvation.
[77]
The Lord’s actions would not only ensure the blessings of the Sinai covenant for the people but would also renew the blessings of the Davidic covenant. The name of this coming future figure, the Branch, is almost certainly a reference to Jeremiah 23:5, which itself promises a reversal of the rejection of Jehoiachin by the Lord in 22:30. Through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord had declared that none of Jehoiachin’s seed will sit on his throne. Nonetheless, God would yet raise up a righteous descendant for David who will reign with justice and will establish salvation for his people (23:7–8). This promise is reiterated by Zechariah and linked to the sign of the existence of Joshua and his fellow priests.
Finally, Joshua’s attention is directed to an engraved stone (Zech 3:9). This stone is most probably part of the high priest’s clothing, a gemstone with seven facets (or “eyes”) associated with the turban and inscribed with an inscription.31 Aaron’s turban had just such an ornament, engraved with the words Holy to the Lord, which enabled him to bear the iniquity of the people before the Lord (Exod 28:36–38).32 This stone has been prepared by God and engraved by him, for he is the one who will act to remove the iniquity of the land definitively.
Rewards for Faithfulness
Since the Lord is going to bring about this definitive work, does this mean that there is nothing for his human servants to do? Not at all. The theme of faithfulness is very important to the exilic and postexilic literature, not as the means of staying within the covenant relationship but as the source of receiving reward. We have already seen this in Zechariah 3, with the promise of special access to God for Joshua the
31. There may be a play on words here. The seven eyes recall the seven eyes of the Lord that roam throughout the earth in Zech 4:10. It is not only Joshua’s attention that is directed toward the stone but the Lord’s attention also.
32. Meyers and Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8, 205. It is also possible that this stone is not part of Joshua’s clothing but is the same stone found in Zech 4:7, where it is an essential part of the temple. Since priest and temple function together in the removal of sin and since both point us forward to the work of Christ, there is not a great deal of difference in the exposition of the passage, whichever alternative is chosen.
[78]
high priest as a reward for faithful service, but it is equally prominent elsewhere in the literature.
Haggai 2
Because of his faithfulness in obeying the Lord during the day of small things (Zech 4:10), the civil governor, Zerubbabel, is promised special status on the day of cosmic shaking (Hag 2:6–7). On that day, Zerubbabel need not fear. The Lord would take him and make him like a signet ring (חוֹתָם), for he had chosen him (Hag 2:23). The language used reinforces the point that Zerubbabel, as a descendant of the Davidic line (1 Chr 3:19), represents the renewal of that ancient commitment on God’s part. Though the Lord had cast away Jehoiachin like a signet ring (Jer 22:24), now that rejection would be reversed. The language of “taking” and “choosing” is the language of election, especially the initial election of David (Ps 78:70). The Lord is declaring in this oracle that the presence of Zerubbabel is evidence that the stump is not dead; he is, as it were, a green shoot emerging from the stump of the old line (an image that will be developed further by Zechariah).
What has Zerubbabel done to deserve this mark of approval? He has simply done what the kings of Judah ought to have done, but often failed to do, namely listen to God’s word through the prophet and obey it. The role that Zerubbabel has played in the refounding of the temple has earned him the title my servant, a title that was used particularly of David and of the expectation of an ideal successor in his line (2 Sam 3:18; Ps 78:70).33 He has not built his own house but has labored to rebuild God’s house, precisely the calling he received in Haggai 1. His reward was to hear God say to him, in effect: “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matt 25:21). Even though there was no earthly reward for his faithfulness, his obedience was not useless or unobserved. It may not yet have been the day for shaking the world, but his present faithfulness would in due time receive a heavenly reward.
33. Ibid., 68.
[79]
Ezekiel 40–48
The principle of reward for faithful service is a key element behind the construction of the book of Ezekiel, in which the plan for the future in Ezekiel 40–48 reflects the critique of Ezekiel 1–39.34 Those who are privileged with closest access to the center of the temple are those who have been most faithful in the past. This is especially true of the Zadokite priests, who have been faithful and are rewarded with the central role in the new temple (44:15–16). To be sure, their faithfulness is not perfect (22:26), and therefore they have no access to the most holy place.35 Nonetheless, they have been the most faithful of the Lord’s people and so may expect a reward in the heavenly realm.
The Levites, on the other hand, had been unfaithful, serving the people in their spiritual adultery (44:6–8). Yet far from being excluded from the visionary Promised Land for their unfaithfulness, they are restored to their honorable, God-given place as ministers of the sanctuary (44:9–13).36 The covenant between the Lord and the tribe of Levi cannot be broken through their faithlessness (Jer 33:21). The prince (נָשִׂיא) also has an honored, although limited, place in the new society, in spite of the covenant breaking of his forerunners. Meanwhile, the laity, whose leaders are charged with the prime responsibility for the abominations that led up to the exile, are pushed to the margins of the new society. In contrast to their former rights of access, they are now limited to a mere procession through the outer court of the temple, separated from the inner court by a high wall with strong gates (46:8–10). Yet even they are not excluded from this new world order: through God’s grace and mercy, all twelve of the tribes find a place in the renewed land. All of God’s chosen people enter and
34. I argue this point at length in Ezekiel and the Leaders of Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1994).
35. There is no sacrificial ritual carried out within the most holy place of Ezekiel’s temple, unlike the Mosaic tabernacle and the Davidic temple. In fact, no one—not even the prophet himself—has access to that holy space. This is one aspect of the design that marks it out as “theology as architecture,” rather than a blueprint for an actual building. On the theological ideas being expressed, see Duguid, Ezekiel, 464–551.
36. On the restoration of the Levites, see Duguid, Ezekiel and the Leaders of Israel, 133–39. On Ezekiel’s purpose in this section, see idem, “Putting Priests in Their Place: Ezekiel’s Contribution to the History of the Old Testament Priesthood,” in Ezekiel’s Hierarchical World: Wrestling with a Tiered Reality (ed. Stephen L. Cook and Corinne L. Patton; SBL Symposium Series 31; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), 41–57.
[80]
remain in the covenant relationship through the Lord’s faithfulness, yet there are greater rewards for those who have been more faithful in that service. Faithfulness in the Lord’s service finds its reward in enhanced access to the presence of the Lord.
Theological Reflections
All of the Old Testament covenants, both conditional and unconditional, would have ended in failure if left to the faithfulness of sinful human beings. The covenant with Abraham was endangered on several occasions by Abraham himself before Isaac was even born (Gen 12:10–16; 16:1–15; 20:1–2) and then by Isaac and Jacob (Gen 27). The people of Israel’s unfaithfulness led God to threaten their total annihilation on several occasions before they even reached the Promised Land (Exod 32:9–10; Num 14:11–12; 16:21, 45 [MT 17:10]).37 At the end of Deuteronomy, the Lord renewed the Sinai covenant with the people, rehearsing the alternatives: blessing or curse (Deut 28). Yet it was already evident which of these prospects faced the people. In spite of Moses’s impassioned appeal to “choose life!” (30:19), the people had already demonstrated many times over their inability to keep the terms of the covenant. If their unfaithfulness could have negated the relationship, then it would have done so already. The same is true of the Davidic covenant: it is no coincidence that David’s sin with Bathsheba is recounted (2 Sam 11–12) immediately after the account of the Davidic covenant (2 Sam 7). The narrator is showing us that human unfaithfulness cannot annul God’s covenant commitment.38
37. Had God really intended to destroy the people he could have done so immediately, without further discussion. His threats provide the cue for Moses to intercede on behalf of the people, so that they may receive his mercy and grace instead of the judgment their unfaithfulness deserved; see Jacob Milgrom, Numbers (Jewish Publication Society Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990), 109.
38. In a similar fashion, the author of Genesis follows the Noahic covenant with the story of Noah’s drunkenness; see Bruce K. Waltke, “The Phenomenon of Conditionality within Unconditional Covenants,” in Israel’s Apostasy and Restoration: Essays in Honor of Roland K. Harrison (ed. Avraham Gileadi; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988), 131. One could also add Israel’s apostasy with the golden calf immediately after the giving of the covenant documents on Mount Sinai. It is as if in every covenant the human parties are immediately put to the test and demonstrated to be lacking in faithfulness, yet the covenant relationship persists.
[81]
Jesus Christ, the Fulfiller of the Covenants
If Israel is a nation of promise breakers, though, how then will these covenants be fulfilled and bring about the blessing that God has irrevocably committed himself to give his people? To use N. T. Wright’s apt phrase, “What happens when promise and Torah meet?”39 How could a conditional covenant, whose blessings could be enjoyed only by the faithful, be good news for a deeply flawed people?40 The answer of the Old Testament is twofold: there must be a substitute who suffers in place of his people and a covenant keeper who takes Israel’s place (and, even more profoundly, Adam’s place) in fulfilling the righteousness that God demands as the condition of blessing. The answer of the New Testament is that that suffering substitute and obedient servant is Jesus Christ, the fulfiller of all of God’s covenants.
In the first place, there must be a suffering substitute. This is depicted visually in the various sacrifices given as part of the Sinai covenant. Sin must be atoned for by the shedding of blood, as these sacrifices vividly and regularly made clear (Lev 17:11). Covenantal nomists regularly refer to these sacrifices as part of the obligation of man’s faithfulness, one of the aspects of the covenantal relationship that made imperfect obedience to its terms acceptable to God.41 Yet this seems to place too much weight on the efficacy of these old covenant sacrifices, which as Hebrews 10:11 reminds us “can never take away sins.” The value of these sacrifices and their efficacy, such as it was, lay in their ability to point old covenant believers forward by faith to the single efficacious sacrifice that Christ would offer in the
39. N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 138.
40. Wright may be correct in saying that this problem “is more than the plight of the sinner convicted by a holy law” (ibid., 142), but at the same time it is not less than the plight of the sinner convicted by a holy law. Even though the question has a context in redemptive history, it is still essentially the same question that faces every person who stands in the presence of a God whose standard is absolute perfection. There is in fact no conflict between the individual and the corporate (or covenantal) perspective. The exiles needed to know that God had not rejected his people as a whole, but they also needed to know that they themselves as individuals were welcome to return. On the balance between corporate and individual categories, see Duguid, Ezekiel, 239–41.
41. See Rich Lusk, “Response to Morton Smith,” in The Auburn Avenue Theology, Pros and Cons: Debating the Federal Vision (ed. E. Calvin Beisner; Fort Lauderdale, FL: Knox Theological Seminary, 2004), 128. Similarly, Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 422.
[82]
fullness of time (10:10). In fact, the old covenant sacrifices themselves could not atone for the sins that the people were committing, which is why the people ended up in exile.
This is precisely what Deuteronomy 30 anticipated would be the result of the renewed Sinai covenant. Because of their rebellion and apostasy, the people would end up in exile (29:16–28 [MT 29:15–27]), from where the Lord would have to restore them by a sovereign act of his grace (30:1–6). Their history of apostasy would inevitably climax in covenant judgment and renewal in the form of exile and restoration.42 And so indeed the history of Israel unfolded. Yet the historical exile to Babylon effected no such change in the people. They were the same Israel after the exile as they had been before, still experiencing the effects of the curse because of their sin (Hag 1:10). This should have made the lesson abundantly evident to all from their historical experience, that there was no way to blessing through their faithfulness to works of Torah. What Deuteronomy warned, history had validated: those who rely on their own efforts to keep the Sinai covenant as the means of blessing would find there nothing other than curse (Gal 3:10).
In order for there to be such a profound change in the people, God himself, in the person of Israel’s Messiah, had to take upon himself the curse of the Torah and endure exile on their behalf. As Messiah, Jesus represented Israel and so was able to take upon himself Israel’s curse and exhaust it.43 That is why his death took the form of the covenantally cursed death on a tree (Deut 21:23). Through his death, in which his alienation from God on the cross was the profoundest experience of exile ever, Jesus paid for Israel’s sins and removed their curse.
Yet, it is not enough to remove the curse and return God’s people to, as it were, neutral ground. The goal of the covenant is not simply removing the threat of God’s wrath from his people; it is bringing about the full blessing that all of the covenants promised to covenant keepers. From where does the righteousness required to earn these blessings come? The answer is that Messiah Jesus not only bore the
42. Wright, Climax of the Covenant, 140.
43. Ibid., 151.
[83]
curse of the law against covenant breakers, but he himself was the covenant keeper. That is why he could not simply be beamed down to the cross or crucified in infancy, but needed to be born of a woman, under the law, to redeem those under the law (Gal 4:4–5).44 Just as in his death and resurrection Jesus is Israel, undergoing exile and restoration, so also in his earlier life, Jesus is Israel, perfectly fulfilling all of the demands of Torah.
This depiction is particularly prominent in Matthew’s gospel, where the genealogy’s three foci (Abraham, David, and exile) serve as structuring devices for the whole gospel. The first part (Matt 1:18–4:16) shows us Jesus the son of Abraham, going down to Egypt (2:14–15), passing through the waters (3:13–17), and enduring the wilderness just as Israel did (4:1–11), yet without sin. In the next section (4:17–16:20), after the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus recapitulates the law-giving role of Moses, the attention increasingly focuses on the question, “Could this be the son of David?” (12:23). Meanwhile, the third section (16:21–28:20) shows us Jesus the son of exile as he turns his face to the cross. In his faithful life, Jesus thus reenacts the entire course of Israel’s history, remaining faithful where they failed.45
This is exactly what we should have expected from passages like Zechariah 3. It is not enough for the high priest’s filthy garments to be removed and for him to be left naked. He must also be reclothed in pure festival garments if he is to serve before a holy God. In the light of the New Testament, we may go further and observe that every privilege assigned to Joshua is matched by a move in the opposite direction by Christ. Joshua was clothed in festival garments, his shame removed; Jesus had the clothing stripped from his back and divided among his crucifiers, exposing him to their mockery. Joshua received a clean turban on his head; Jesus was crowned with thorns, pressed down into his forehead until the blood ran down his face. Joshua was judged and declared clean on the basis of God’s choice of him for salvation, found not guilty of defilement that was really his;
44. S. M. Baugh, “Galatians 3:20 and the Covenant of Redemption,” Westminster Theological Journal 66 (2004): 68.
45. As is observed correctly by Craig L. Blomberg, Matthew (New American Commentary; Nashville: Broadman, 1992), 67.
[84]
Jesus was judged by sinners, found guilty on trumped up charges, and handed over to be scourged and despised—because of God’s choice of him to be the sin bearer (Acts 4:28). Joshua’s sin was taken away: he was declared innocent, able to stand before God as high priest for his people, bearing their name before God; Jesus, our true and holy high priest, was made sin by God (2 Cor 5:21) and separated from God the Father so that he cried out in agony, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” At the cross, Joshua’s filth was removed and imputed to Jesus, and Jesus’s perfect Torah keeping was imputed to Joshua. In Christ, the sign of Joshua found its fulfillment, as the Lord “removed the sin of this land in a single day” (Zech 3:9).
The Place of Human Faithfulness
The treatment of reward in the exilic and postexilic materials has a reflex in the New Testament that helps us to understand where our faithfulness belongs. Our faithfulness is not the condition by which we remain in the covenant; nonetheless, there is covenantal reward for those who are faithful, a reward that is related in some manner to our faithfulness. This gradation of reward should be neither overstressed nor understressed: there is real differentiation on the basis of our faithfulness, yet at the same time all the renewed people of God receive the fundamental blessing of being in God’s presence eternally.46
Both of these aspects are present in the New Testament. In the vision of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21, it is the equal reward of all the saints that is prominent. All believers are made perfect and granted equal entrance into the very presence of God himself, in the heavenly most holy place itself, which is the entire city. Likewise, in the parable of the workers in the vineyard, the same reward is given to those who are hired at the eleventh hour as to those who have worked hardest and longest (Matt 20:1–16). This fundamental
46. When we speak of our faithfulness, we should remember that all of our good works flow not from ourselves but from the work of the Spirit of Christ within us (WCF 16.3) and are always a long way short of perfect obedience. Nonetheless, as WCF 16.6 points out, because believers are accepted in Christ, God is pleased to reward their sincere works, although they are accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections. See also HC 63, which teaches a doctrine of rewards but adds that these rewards “come not of merit, but of grace.”
[85]
equality of reward flows from our being united to Christ, and it is his righteousness that is the basis for our full inheritance.
Yet on the other hand, some texts also affirm gradation in reward. Paul draws a contrast between two builders, each of whom is building up God’s church on the only possible foundation, Jesus Christ (1 Cor 3:11). One of the builders builds with gold and precious stones, while the other builds with wood and straw (3:12). The works of each will be exposed on the day of judgment, their quality tested with fire (3:13). If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss (3:14). Both are equally saved (3:15), but they receive different rewards.47
Suggestively, the two versions of the parable of the talents in the Gospels present complementary pictures. In Matthew, the focus is on the faithful stewards receiving exactly the same reward: the man who has been faithful with two talents, hears his master say exactly the same words as the one who was faithful with five: “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” (25:21). Their common faithfulness over differing amounts receives a common reward. Yet in Luke’s account, the one whose faithful stewardship of the money resulted in a tenfold increase is rewarded with charge of ten cities, while the servant whose stewardship resulted in a fivefold increase is awarded charge over five cities (Luke 19:17, 19). Their differing fruitfulness with the same initial amount receives a graded reward.
As with so many other biblical metaphors, these images present complementary truths that together express a richer picture than any single image could.48 Either image on its own is open to misunderstanding, while taken together they give a fuller picture. The function of the scriptural teaching of rewards is similarly twofold: the equality of inheritance stresses that all who enter heaven have a glorious reward, while the principle of gradation of reward stresses the accountability
47. Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 263.
48. Another example of this phenomenon is the slain lamb who is paradoxically also the Lion of Judah (Rev 5:5–6). Together, the images present a richer picture than either image taken on its own.
[86]
of the saints to God and the certainty of their future vindication by him.49 On the one hand, God expects fruitfulness from his servants and will hold everyone accountable for their use of the resources and opportunities that he has entrusted to their care, while on the other hand no one who has trusted Christ will be disappointed by the inheritance he receives. There is only one way to enter this reward of eternal life in the close presence of God: through faith in Christ that looks to his righteousness imputed to us and depends on his faithfulness—not our own—to bring to completion our salvation.
49. Darrell L. Bock, Luke (NIV Application Commentary; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 488.
[87]
Note: A special thanks to Courtney Litts for her efforts in helping us to get this chapter formatted to publish here.
RESOURCES
- Subscribe To The Heidelblog!
- Download the HeidelApp on Apple App Store or Google Play
- The Heidelblog Resource Page
- Heidelmedia Resources
- The Ecumenical Creeds
- The Reformed Confessions
- The Heidelberg Catechism
- Recovering the Reformed Confession (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008)
- Why I Am A Christian
- What Must A Christian Believe?
- Heidelblog Contributors
- Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry: Essays by the Faculty of Westminster Seminary California
- Support Heidelmedia: use the donate button or send a check to
Heidelberg Reformation Association
1637 E. Valley Parkway #391
Escondido CA 92027
USA
The HRA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization
Iain M. Duguid
Dr Duguid (PhD, Cambridge) is professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary. He is an ordained teaching elder in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARPC) and has planted and pastored several churches including Redeemer Presbyterian Church (EPCEW), Barton, Oxford, England; Grace Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Fallbrook, CA; Christ Presbyterian Church in Grove City, PA; and Christ Presbyterian Church in Glenside, PA. He is author of “Putting Priests in Their Place: Ezekiel’s Contribution to the History of the Old Testament Priesthood” in Ezekiel’s Hierarchical World: Wrestling with a Tiered Reality, or “But Did They Live Happily Ever After? The Eschatology of the Book of Esther” in the Westminster Theological Journal; “Nehemiah: The Best King Judah Never Had” in Let Us Go Up to Zion: Essays in Honour of H. G. M. Williamson on the Occasion of His Sixty-fifth Birthday; Ezekiel (NIV Application Commentary) or Song of Songs (Tyndale OT Commentary). He was professor of Old Testament at Westminster Seminary California when this chapter was published.
More by Iain M. Duguid ›
Absolutely SUPERB chapter! Thank you for reprinting it here, this deserves careful reading & consideration by all who seek clarity around these issues.