Tag: moses

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israel

A Bird’s Eye View and Numbers 20-25

One of the funniest, and oddest, perspectives is the bird’s eye view. I personally don’t like getting to that perspective—shooting down the runaway until it almost ends, catapulting into the air, and praying that nothing happens. But the perspective is extremely helpful—in criminal cases, for example.

You know, there goes the criminal, driving down the road and slamming into a telephone pole. Out he comes, running; between garbage cans, through a yard with a barking dog, over another fence. He really thinks he can get away!

Except we’re seeing all of this from the vantage point of a police chopper that has the entire view of the man’s progress and end where the cops have set up their net. If the criminal had this view he’d probably not run as hard to escape. And the cops, oh the cops with the benefit of that point of view do their work confidently.

Let’s take off then, shooting down the runaway of the text and getting some details as we take off and see this perspective.

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israel

Corporate Identity in The Pentateuch

Corporate Solidarity, if you recall, is this notion that the many (individuals) unite to the one over them by their identification with that one. This view differs from federal headship (where the corporate is represented by the head of the covenant) and corporate personhood (where the individual is subsumed in the identity of the one person). I decided to look at the Pentateuch to see if it would play with these sorts of categories with the name “Israel”. I chose the Pentateuch because it was far enough ahead before any national references and because this is where we see Israel coming into that position.

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israel

You Best Represent: Testing at Meribah

How can one properly represent God? Well, there are several ways in the book of Numbers. The Israelites have been protecting the things of God, they’ve been holding fast the center, they were to lead a purified life in their marriages, their homes, and their business practices; they were to offer sacrifices and remember the Passover: all these things were used to properly represent God to the world. They were to be His people, a Holy Nation of Priests, and so they were to stand.

But here’s a story of another misrepresentation of God.

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church israel philosophy

Guestblogger: Xulon on Ethics, Law and the Sabbath

Recently, blogger Xulon, from Theologica posted this excellent series focusing on ethics, Law, and the question of the Sabbath. He gave me permission to share them here on the Bible Archive. This is the series page:

  1. Ethics Beyond Duty
  2. The Law of Moses Has Been Done Away With
  3. The Ten Commandments Are Done Away With The Law Of Moses
  4. The Sabbath in the New Testament
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church israel

The Ten Commandments Are Done Away With The Law Of Moses (3 of 4)

Recently, blogger Xulon, from Theologica posted this excellent series focusing on ethics, Law, and the question of the Sabbath. This is post 3 of 4.

In my previous blog, I showed that the Bible reveals that the Law of Moses has been done away. A common criticism of this is that if you eliminate the Law of Moses, you have eliminated objective morality (For the topic of the need for “objective” morality, I also recommend this blog on Christian Ethics). This is often coupled with the charge of antinomianism (anti=against+nomos=law). This “weakness” is often remedied by dividing the Law into sections; the Ceremonies, which are fulfilled in Christ and not for the believer and the moral code to which, though Christ did keep them perfectly, the believer is still obligated. Key in this regard are the Ten Commandments. “Certainly”, they object, “you are not saying that the Ten Commandments are done away with? Are you saying that God now allows people to commit Adultery?” As mentioned in the previous post, the Law is a unified whole and cannot be divided like this but another part of the answer is found in 2 Corinthians: But if the ministry that produced death — carved in letters on stone tablets (2 Corinthians 3:7). What is to be noticed here is that the only part of the Law of Moses which was engraved on stone tablets was the Ten Commandments. This whole section which declares the Law of Moses to have been replaced by the Ministry of the Spirit has here a direct reference to the Ten Commandments.

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