Stoned-Campbell Disciple

The Story is Good News. This morning I am combining thoughts on Leviticus and 2 Corinthians under the theme of “The Good News of Immanuel.”

For communication’s sake, I have argued elsewhere that there are three basic “creeds” in the Hebrew Bible that sum up the hope of Israelite (biblical) faith. These are:

1) The God Creed (WHO God Is) found in Ex. 34.6; Num. 14.18f; Psalms 86.15; 103.8-10; 111.4; 116.5; 145.8-9; etc; Joel 2.13; Jon 4.2; etc, etc). It is everywhere. Yahweh is Hesed (steadfast love/grace).

2) The Grace Creed (What God DOES). This is found all over but the confession in Deuteronomy 26.5-9 is a good place to grasp it. Yahweh rescues in Hesed.

3) The Immanuel Creed (Where God LIVES). The Immanuel Creed proclaims loudly the desire of Yahweh to dwell with creation. It is all over the Hebrew Bible but Leviticus 26.9-13 is a succinct declaration by Yahweh’s self. Yahweh seeks RELATIONSHIP rooted in Hesed with creation.

“I will look with favor upon you and make you fruitful and multiply you; and I will maintain my covenant with you. You shall eat old grain long stored, and you shall have to clear out the old to make way for the new. I WILL PLACE MY DWELLING IN YOUR MIDST, and I shall not abhor you. And I WILL WALK AMONG YOU, AND WILL BE YOUR GOD AND YOU SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. I am Yahweh your God brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be their slaves no more; I have broken the bars of your yoke and make you stand tall” (Lev 26.9-13).

Immanuel = God With Us (Mt 1.23). Matthew did not invent this at the birth of Jesus. Jesus born is ultimate hope of the Hebrew Bible. Immanuel is not Jesus’s name, it is Matthew’s “Old Testament” commentary on what Jesus means. Immanuel is the significance of Jesus.

Paul, and the New Testament writers, delve deeply into all three of the God Creeds. Immanuel is the burning desire of all faithful Israelites. We will focus here.

God created the world/cosmos out of love for communion, to share in God’s love/Hesed (Pss 104; 136; etc). This was the goal of creation.

The inexorable movement from Genesis 3 on in the narrative is that the Creator wishes to redeem creation so it can experience the very purpose it was brought into being. That is to exist as a place of communion/fellowship for the Creator God and the creatures that Yahweh made. This communion was experienced in the Garden of Eden, but humans vandalized this Garden. The Garden was a sort of holy of holies in the midst of creation.

The Exodus has the goal of intimate communion not only liberation. Yes, Yahweh’s infinite Hesed is on full display in rescuing the enslaved nobodies from Egypt and its Prince of Death, Pharaoh.

Therefore, Exodus does not end at the chapter 15, the crossing the Red Sea, nor at chapter 19, coming to Mt Sinai, but rather in chapter 40, where the Glory of the God of the Universe fills the tabernacle and now dwells with Israel. The Exodus was the means to the goal. Exodus ends with Immanuel! God With Us!

Israel, as a whole, is the dwelling place of God in Creation. Israel, as a whole, is the “temple” of the Living God in the midst of creation. Sort of a Garden of Eden redone.

Following the “pattern” of the Hebrew Bible, the NT does not end at the Cross nor even the Resurrection of Messiah Jesus in his body. It ends as the Exodus does with God coming to dwell with Creation. The Cross event is understood in the NT as an “Exodus” event which ends in Revelation 21-22 with God doing that Exodus 40 thing: Filling the Creation with the glory of divine presence and dwelling with humanity. The New Testament follows the “Old Testament” pattern.

Thus Leviticus says, “I will place my dwelling/abode in your midst and I will not spurn you. I will walk among you, and will be your God and you shall be my people” (26.11-12).

Immanuel = God With Us!

I will live with you.

I will make you my home.

“I will walk with you” (a direct reference to Gen 3.8, Eden). I will be your God, you shall be my people. Israel will be fruitful and multiply (26.9) which likewise evokes the blessedness of creation (Gen 1.28).

The Hesed covenant of God is deeply intimate. And just as a marriage license is not the marriage, so also the covenantal “agreement” is not the relationship. The marriage is the indescribable reality, the relationship, that binds husband with wife and God with people.

The point of the covenant is not obedience, it is not avoiding hell. The point of the covenant of love/HESED is to EXPERIENCE the PRESENCE OF GOD (emphasis not shouting). Immanuel. To live in communion with God, basking in Yahweh’s Hesed.

The Immanuel Creed (God dwelling with God’s people in a covenant of love) is expressed throughout the Hebrew Bible. The dwelling of God is the single greatest incentive for faithfulness and holiness. The astounding grace of God dwelling with sinful humans is astonishing. This is the impulse for the Incarnation of God in Jesus of Nazareth. It is through Jesus, the Jewish King, the purpose of creation is ultimately realized. This is the what the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is both proof and pledge.

But as I have reflected on this text, not only was its significance reaffirmed for the rest of the Hebrew Bible (Ex 6.7; Deut 4.20; 7.6; 14.2; Pss 95.7/100.3; Hos 1.9-10; 2.23; Jer 7.23; 31.22; 31.1, 32; etc, etc, etc) with what has been called the “Covenant formula, “I will be/you will be” or “He is/they are,” “I will be with you,” etc these all point to the same reality: the covenant relationship means God is dwelling with us.

We are God’s house/temple.

Immanuel.

God With Us.

This is the Hebrew BIble’s incarnational theology.

Without it, beloved, there is not much in the New Testament.

Paul, the Pharisee, taps directly into this Immanuel Creed and applies it directly to Gentile (!) believers at Corinth. He did not believe this theology was “nailed to the cross.” And he does so in the same way the Holiness Code of Leviticus does. The dwelling Presence of God demands holiness on the part of the “house/family” (the temple must be sanctified).

There are those who boldly claim that Paul never applied the “Old Testament” to the Christian church. This is a baseless claim that can be affirmed only by those who know neither the Hebrew Bible nor Paul. Paul apparently did not get the memo! Paul addresses the Corinthians, former pagans, and applies Leviticus 26 explicitly, directly to them. Speaking of idolatry (cf. Lev 26.1) Paul says,

“What agreement does Messiah (i.e. King of the Jews) have with Beliar? Or what does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement does the TEMPLE of God with idols? For WE are the temple of the living God, as God said.”

Then Paul quotes Leviticus 26.12 explicitly,

“I will live in them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people …” (cited above)

Paul follows up by quoting Isaiah 52.11 combined with Hosea 1.10. Then the apostle says, to conclude, in 7.1,

“since WE have these promises [i.e. promises to Israel!], beloved, let US cleanse ourselves … making holiness perfect in the fear of God.” (2 Corinthians 6.15-7.1).

The apostle Paul believes this theology in Leviticus. Temple or Immanuel theology applies to the Gentile church. The reason for this is that the Gentiles are no longer gentiles/pagans but have been made part of Israel. They are “grafted” into Israel. They are now “fellow citizens” of the “commonwealth of Israel” (Romans 11.11-24; Ephesians 2.11-3.10).

They, the Corinthians Gentiles, are now among the ekklesia of God or the qahal of God that is God’s DWELLING place just as surely as Israel wandering in the wilderness (see 1 Cor 10).

The Creator God has made us the “spot” in which God dwells in the world. We reflect the glory of God’s beauty, the holiness, that shows the world what true life is like. Paul says to the Corinthians “don’t you know who you are? Don’t you know who is living and walking in our midst?”

As Richard Hays wrote in Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, “the church discovers its true identity only in relationship to the sacred story of Israel …”

What is that Story? It is the Immanuel Creed. God has come both in the person of Jesus and God makes us the dwelling place of God through the Spirit. In anticipation of the emergence of the new heavens and new earth.

Immanuel. I guess Leviticus is actually Good News after all. We are made holy by God’s presence. Now we need to be the ikons we are made to be by radiating the beauty of God into the creation around us.

Leviticus 26.11-12 is, in a sense, the point of the entire Bible and culminates not in 2 Corinthians 6.16ff but Revelation 21 and 22.

God Dwells Among Us.
Immanuel.

Blessings.

Related Interest

Abba Father: Walking with Jesus’s Father in the Old Testament

The Gospel According to Paul: God Has Kept His Promises

The Promises: The New Testament Gospel is the Old Testament Promises

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 9th, 2024 at 8:09 am and is filed under A Gathered People, Exodus, Holy Spirit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.