In addition to the following and previously posted comments - I was reading some scripture this evening that has associated value:
1. The fatherhood of God is implicit in old testament scriptures as He relates to the chosen people -- Exodus 4:22 Then you will say to Pharaoh: This is what the Lord says: Israel
2. Isreal is a type of Christ in that it is His firstborn son. The difference between the two (Christ and Isreal) is pronounced. The implied theology ties the Israel of God beginning with Adam to the Christ. The revealed mystery of it all is that in Christ, redemption is offered to all of mankind.
3. A third point is that the suffering of Christ was predetermined before the beginnings of the world. I , for one, have relegated this thought to the Great Spiritual Boneyard in the Sky, seeing only the preknowledge of God and nothing more.
But, if redemption was before man -- and there is nothing before man except God, should we not conclude that redemption is a part of the essence of God and that the extension of the redemptive act is not a performance of God so much as it is an _expression_ God, Himself. And so the triune God is expressed in eternal community
and the economy of God is seen in redemption. How God is , is one thing. How God expresses Himself is another.
Redemption, then, should not be considered in terms of the eventuality of the passing time, but as an _expression_ of who God is.
It is not that God made man, and eventually saved him. Rather, it is that God is redemptive in nature and , beginning with the first light of creation, pursues His redemptiveness. Creation, then, would be a firstfruit of a Redemptive God and personal sacrifice would be the highest _expression_ of that nature. And the final scene -- the resurrection of the elect unto Himself (Calvinism is not in view, here) is the only remaining _expression_ of God's true nature !!!! Life in the Spirit is the dawning of rersurrected life -- eternal life with Him. And all of it has to do with His very nature. All of it is because of His very nature.
And so it is, that man (in Romans chapter 1) sees the creation as a witness of God just as surely as God is at work within him both to will and to accomplish His pleasure. It is all about God. We can either attach ourselves to this reality and inherit life or we can refuse the only reality that is and die.
What a choice !!
jd
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Probably no interest on this one, but I'll throw it out there anyway.
Isreal claims ancestry through Abraham to God. But there was no Israel from the beginning of earth's history to around 1600 BC or so.
The Egyptians had their own culture, religion and mythology. The Jews really had no national identity at all. If if if the Egyptians had incorporated these people into their society in the early years, there would have been no Israel of God --- or, at the very least, Egyptian mythology and culture would have survived in Israel. But, the very fact of continued bondage IMO created an "us versus them" psychology that prevented Israel from being lost in the sea of Egyptian nuance.
Their escape from Egypt was that of a people needing Divine help at the most basic levels of national existence. . They had no law or national structure. Their God of the past 400 years (of bondage) was a God of tradition and little more. We are talking about 2 to 3 million people (so some assert) leaving Egypt with absolutely no where to go, no way to survive militarily , a culture of bondage and defeat as the National Story, And when they got to the Red Sea, reality hit them between the eyes. This defeatist attitude becomes a part of their tradition and , perhaps, is an aspect of their repeated rebellion. It is almost as if they are the Divine Stepchild and they really don't care for this identiy. Does this have anything to do with fact that do not approach God as "Father God" ??
And what is Moses doing with the writing of Genesis if not collecting the oral traditions in an effort at presenting Iseal (this brandnew nation) with a history that it can claim as its own??? Perhaps he begins with the Beginning because this was the perfect place to start. .......... contrasting the Egyptian mythologies of the beginnings of man with an account of a sovereign God and His creation. These Jews, freah out of Egypt, most definitely knew of the Egyptian stories. The contrast would have been startling.
Whatever.
jd
