The point of Scripture is that history has a goal and an unfolding purpose in which change and development have an eternal importance, such that the eternal is not a static accomplishment separate from creation, time, and history. We learn that Jesus Christ is the second person of the Trinity, and that God is defined in relationship to the world. The eternal embraces the dynamic of time, so that God is always creator, God is always the Father of the Son, and the life of Christ, the cross and resurrection, are eternal facts about the identity of God. It is not simply that the eternal destiny of souls is determined in time, but eternity itself is inclusive of the outworking of time and history. This is the implication of there being a God/Man seated at the right hand of the Father, crucified from the foundation of the world, who is the alpha and omega. There is development, change, and an unfolding of revelation culminating in Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit, but what is this a development out of and in to?
Christ does not convey an already established meaning, perduring in the heavens, but in his relationship to the world and God he reveals a dynamic meaning of relationship and personhood, otherwise absent. The incarnation does not leave God and the world the same, but in their relationship, there is an unfolding transformation that is alive with the Spirit. This is not the encounter with an object, left unchanged by the encounter but it is meaningful in the change enacted, the life discovered, the freedom and openness of Spirit. This is transformational and living truth, in which God in Christ transforms the world through the incarnation, out of bondage and into liberation and this is the meaning unfolding and realized.
The unfolding of revelation is of liberation for the oppressed, for slaves, for the outcaste or for the Hapiru – an inferior social class made up of a shifting, unsettled underclass. As Anthony Bartlett describes, they are the landless underclass, the “displaced peasantry, disinherited clans, refugees, scattered warriors,” who could easily be enslaved, fall into thievery, or hired as mercenaries.[1] We learn in Genesis (14:13-16) that Abram had gathered three hundred eighteen men, with whom he attacked the “kings” and “brought back all the goods, and also brought back his relative Lot with his possessions, and also the women, and the people” (Gen. 14:16). It is in this context that “Hebrew” appears for the first time in the Bible, not to name an ethnic or religious group, but to describe this class, fitting the category of Hapiru, gathered around Abram. “So, when the text says, ‘Abram the Hebrew,’ it pretty naturally means ‘Abram the Hapiru.’”[2]
Abraham’s willingness to prostitute his wife in moments of danger or insecurity (Gen. 12:10-20; 20:1-18) points to his desperate status. When Pharaoh discovers she is his wife and not his sister, he releases Sarai from his harem and sends them away, as breaking this taboo has brought on a curse: “But the LORD struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife” (Gen. 12:17). He casts them out, much as a future Pharaoh would drive out all of the Hapiru from Egypt. “’Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her and go.’ Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they escorted him away, with his wife and all that belonged to him” (Gen. 12:19–20).
While some among the Hebrews may share an ancestry, what molds them together, even under Moses, is their shared slave status in Egypt. “[T]he Egyptians could not eat bread with the Hebrews, for that is loathsome to the Egyptians” (Gen 43:32). Like Abram and Sarai, it may be the Jews were liberated by being driven out. Outcastes have no caste, no place, no personhood, and this is how they are identified as a distinctive group. The point is not to locate how it is the Jewish people formed, but to show that the formation with which God is concerned is with the oppressed: “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings” (Ex. 3:7). God knows his people as those who are not taskmasters but those who suffer. It is to people that are not a people, without a distinctive genealogy, or a distinctive place, to whom God reveals his name and will become a name in which they can dwell. Exodus describes a mixed multitude (or “foreign mob”) “who went up with them” out of Egypt (Ex. 12:38).
The status of the Hebrews is not with their physical descent and God is not peculiarly aware of them due to their lineage. Concern with the outcaste and stranger, culminating with Christ, begins as the identifying mark of Jews and becomes a distinct part of Hebrew law. There are some fifty-two instances of “do not mistreat aliens (strangers)” in the law. Compared with surrounding contemporaneous law codes, which make provisions for the marginalized (such as widows and orphans), protection and care for foreigners and strangers in Jewish law is unique.[3] The reason given for this distinctive understanding: “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Ex. 22:21). “So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve Him and cling to Him, and you shall swear by His name” (Dt. 10:19–20). “You shall not oppress a stranger, since you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Ex. 23:9). “’Cursed is he who distorts the justice due an alien, orphan, and widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’” (Dt. 27:19). The Hebrew people are constituted a people, first due to their outcaste, enslaved status, and then due to liberation: “When Israel was a youth I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son” (Hos. 11:1).
The paradox is this homeless underclass, identified by their liberation, choose to become a kingdom, with a king, and to be re-indentured. To become a people there must be the constraints marking inside and outside, there must be class marking one’s place in the group, there must be a certain severity of the law so that by the weight of the law one feels the gravity of identity. People are individually and corporately masochistic, needing the group and the possibility of being an outcaste to gain recognition. Bondage is required, and mental and moral freedom are unknown quantities. There is no spiritual or rational freedom where nature and dominance are the highest value. Natural necessity, material might, and physical and political domination are the ruling logic, and in this logic the center and reification of power is in a king. Thus the Jews demanded a king: “Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, ‘No, but there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles’” (1 Sam. 8:19–20).
The prophet Samuel warns, a king will draft your men into his army as fighting men, to work his fields, to make his weapons, and he will indenture your daughters as “perfumers, cooks, and bakers” and he will tax your harvest, and confiscate your fields. “Then you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day” (1 Sam. 8:11–18). The turn to empower a king seems instinctive among primitive peoples, and unfortunately of a failed Christian people, unfamiliar with spiritual freedom.
Eventually, with the collapse of Israel, the Babylonian destruction and captivity, Hebrew kings disappear and the option of oppressive violence is no longer possible. The promise is given by Zechariah of a form of deliverance for which there was long preparation: “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts” (Zech. 4:6). After being shaped as a people and then destroyed a new possibility presents itself: “Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zech. 9:9).
The world is not as it should be, and the structure of might makes right, or the law is the law, or the king is the king, can be challenged. In place of human reason (the Greek logos), there is divine reason and incarnate Logos. A humble king who promises divine power, indwelling every individual, is a new order of reason. History is not static, but the possibility of knowing God presents itself, though it is an alien idea when Jesus first announces it: “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” The Pharisees explain, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?” (Jn. 8:33). They skip the enslaving circumstance of both Abram and the Hebrews in Egypt, and have no notion of the system of enslavement Jesus is describing. Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (Jn. 8:34–36). There is a development in the process of history, out of bondage toward the liberating work of Christ, culminating in the freedom of the Spirit: “that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you” (Jn. 14:17). People once enslaved, though they may not recognize their enslavement, learn of a new order of liberation, not requiring violence, oppression and revenge, but involving the indwelling of God.
Jesus Christ as truth, comes to maturity and full manifestation in history, where there was once immaturity or absence of the truth. The spirituality of truth (Jn. 4:23) does not exist full-grown at the beginning, so truth is not always available for human consciousness. The Bible speaks of times past, in which God overlooked human ignorance (Acts 17:30). There is a time before Christ, before the giving of the Spirit, before freedom, before the fruits of the Spirit, and there is growth and development revealing this end. Bondage to sin, darkness, oppression and violence are realities holding the world in bondage, then there is the liberating work of Christ and the introduction of the Spirit.
There is a developing realization of God, through the Hebrew Scriptures, to the Son, and culminating in the Spirit, and the text of the Bible is not isolated from this unfolding development. There are a series of semiotic shifts, foreshadowing the final shift in Christ, in which God is no longer identified as a tribal God, a warrior God, or the God promoting genocide and murder. The fulness of liberation, culminating in the freedom of the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17) is a developing concept through Abraham’s departure from the religion and strictures of his homeland, through Israel’s departure from Egypt, and culminating in the full freedom from violence and peace of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). Christ as all in all (Col. 3:11) is being realized, though for many primary identity is still as Greeks and Jews, circumcised and uncircumcised, slave and free.
The tendency is to reduce the story of the Bible and the story of Christ, so that it is all either human or divine. Theology can be reduced to a simplistic process theology, apart from the eternal point of view, but it can also be reduced to a crude Calvinism and mechanical predestination apart from naming real world developments. In the first instance everything is changing and moving and there is only process, and in the second instance, nothing changes and everything is set and history is static and its purpose, if there is any, is beyond comprehension. To say that history has eternal importance, is the key Christian claim, and yet this key claim is often neglected, leaving aside the why and how of the Christian faith and Christian life in the process.
If Jesus Christ is the second person of the Trinity, an eternal fact about who God is, it can also be acknowledged that we can see God in becoming without falling into the heresy of process theology. God embraces process, God can be found in history, God becomes human, and the incarnation, the birth, life and death of Christ are all divine facts describing the purpose of history. This deepens Jesus’ claim of truth, or in fact, makes sense of it. Jesus is often pictured as a finite manifestation of eternal and divine trues, but his claim is more immediate and personal. Christ is not the manifestation of a truth which might be manifest otherwise. He is the truth – the truth of God and the world. He is not simply a manifestation of a truth that could have come by means other than his incarnation and personhood.[4] His personhood, his incarnation, his life, are to be directly identified with the liberating Truth. This is not natural truth, but involves narrative, personhood, history, spontaneity, and unpredictability. This truth is not the eternal trues of a disincarnate reason, but the truth incarnate. History is made meaningful through Christ, above and beyond natural law, as meaning is through and in the actuality of Christ – meaning as life and Spirit. Christ is not conveying truth as propositions or facts, but he is truth in meaningful relationship, freeing from the bondage of the logic and law of this world.
[1] Anthony Bartlett, Signs of Change: The Bible’s Evolution of Nonviolence (Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2022), 2.
[2] Bartlett, 3.
[3] Bartlett, 11.
[4] Natural revelation or natural philosophy is not an alternative to Christ.
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