Finding Our Place In God’s Story
As a newly baptized disciple, I recall being appointed as a Bible Study Leader for the first time. This was after we had graduated from our coveted Guard-the-Gospel class. Do you recall this? “Which passage(s) would you choose if you were creating a Bible Study series on the subject of God?” one of my newly baptized disciple friends enthusiastically asked. It was a simple question from a young, riled-up brother. I was fairly certain of how much God had taught me from other more mature older Christians who came to plant the church from the London church (particularly Charles Elikwu, who is currently serving as an Evangelist in the London Church).
I’d been a devout Christian for six months and had recently been called to join the full-time staff of the Lagos Church, where Henry Kriette was the Lead Evangelist. There was no such thing as a Lead Evangelist back then. My knowledge of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, was limited, but I loved the story of God, which was limited at the time to his accomplishment of Salvation for his human imagers. So this crucial question from a brand-new disciple terrified me. I knew it meant something to him, and really meant something to me as well. I had no idea where to look in the Bible to find out more, so I asked for some time to study and asked for his permission to do so.
I had no idea where to look in the Bible for more information. Think about it. I was very young, excited about God’s salvific accomplishment on my behalf but did not know a lot about systematic theology on God. “Which Bible passages would you pick Ndu?” This passage occupied my thought for a few days. I am sure you remember that these were the days we were all very curious, vulnerable and hungry. I met with Charles and made no pretentions. I told him straight off the story and how I needed to give a correct biblical answer to the brother.
Introducing God’s Story: Creating the vast Magnificence Cosmos by God’s Word and from nothing
Stories come in words and pictures. These two (words and pictures) have power, power that build up, hurt and cause pain, tear down deeply, and also heal-heal completely. In the case of God, his words make and create order, beauty, light, all in pristine peace. Stories are common place in our world, they cause us to remember, and they create understanding and memories. When the voice of God said at Jesus’s baptism; “You are my beloved, and in you I am well pleased,” these were words of courage and strength spoken to the hearing of many, but has echoed at every one since. Words said often enough can tear down and dishearten as well as build up and help us dream new possibilities. God’s story finds life in his powerful life producing & creative Word. God who is relational and wants to be known tells his story of how he made the cosmos and mankind. He causes his story to be journaled for future reading, study and enquiry. As young adults, we were told the stories of God creating by speaking words, divine words, at the beginning when God said “Let there be….” At least nine times. As he created beauty, order and life from the earth that was a formless, empty, dark void . . . , and the Word from God swept over the face of the dark formless watery abyss.
God conceptualized and designed humans in his own image, as part of his larger creation. In Genesis 1:26, God says, “Let us make mankind in our image …”, so that they may rule … over all the creatures.” He then says to the human beings he has created, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over …” (1:28). Richter says of this “From this it should be clear that the fundamental similarity between God and humanity is humankind’s unique vocation, its calling or commissioning by God himself. Under God, humanity is to rule over the nonhuman parts of creation on land and in sea and air, much as God is the supreme ruler over all.”
Von Rad explains: “Just as powerful earthly kings, to indicate their claim to dominion, erect an image of themselves in the provinces of their empire where they do not personally appear, so man is placed upon earth in God’s image as God’s sovereign emblem. He is really only God’s representative, summoned to maintain and enforce God’s claim to dominion over the earth. The decisive thing about man’s similarity to God, therefore, is his function in the nonhuman world.” (Von Rad, Genesis, 58.) So, in setting up his rule (kingdom) on earth, God assigned a special role his human imagers that we should be stewards. We are to rule over the creation so that God’s reputation already assured and unlimited is enhanced within his cosmic kingdom. Psalm 8:6 expresses this wonderfully: “the glory of human beings is that God has made them “rulers over the works of his hands.”
There is something about us that constantly makes us aware of some higher power to whom we are accountable to. Bartholomew et al, capture it this way “We cannot think of ourselves as merely the random products of time and chance (as do advocates of atheistic evolution). As Augustine observed long ago in his Confessions, we are made for God, and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in him. This relationship between the creating God and his human creatures is stunningly evoked in Genesis 3:8. God is in the habit of “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” and meeting with the man and woman he has put there. Gordon. God walks regularly with Adam and Eve in the huge garden he has set aside for them. He discusses with them how this great park is developing, how its plants are growing under their care, and how the animals are getting along”
I agree with Bartholomew and Gosheen as they argue that “The story of Genesis is God’s and claims to tell the truth about the cosmos, flatly contradicting other such stories commonplace in both the ancient and modern world. (Italics are mine). Israel was constantly tempted to adopt these other stories as the basis of its worldview, in place of faith in the Lord God, who created the heavens and the earth.”
This temptation is not limited to Israel but rings true in our day today when many make bold claims about other worldviews. Genesis creation narrative also aims to teach us positively what faith in God means and how we think about the world he has made and how we live in it. It does this in a story form. (What I have come to believe as God’s story).
Katharine Jefferts Schori captures it very beautifully when she wrote “God spoke, named distinctions, and blessed the goodness of all that began to emerge.”
God’s creative word has never been silent for long, Isaiah echoes “I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work.” God’s Decree. “For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think. Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth, Doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, So will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed. They’ll do the work I sent them to do, they’ll complete the assignment I gave them. (Isaiah 55:8-11)
God’s story of creation paints a vivid, beautiful picture of his intention for his creation before a devastating mysterious thing called evil interrupted it. Richter comments on this in her “Epic of Eden; “Although there is no specific declaration of covenant making in Eden, we find the profile of bĕrît throughout the narrative. I believe this is so because the concept of bĕrît as it was learned at Sinai so profoundly affected
Israel’s self-understanding that bĕrît was used to organize the earliest narratives of the Bible as well. Thus in Eden we find Yahweh, the suzerain lord, promising to his vassals, Adam and Eve, the land grant of paradise if they will remain loyal to their agreement. The blessings are many, the stipulations few. In fact, the only negative stipulation of this covenant is “you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” On the surface this seems like a simple, even silly rule. But in reality this one edict encompasses the singular law of Eden – God is God and we are not.”
I believe that the pinnacle of the story is captured by the psalmist in Psalm 16:8-9 (GW); “I always keep the Lord in front of me. When he is by my side, I cannot be moved. That is why my heart is glad and my soul rejoices. My body rests secured.” For this writer, his focus or the focus of the one he was writing about was fixated on God. Peter quotes this in Acts 2:25-28. In John 17:4-5 (GW), Jesus the messiah paint a picture of his earthly life, saying to God the father, “On earth, I have given you glory by finishing the work you gave me to do. Now, Father, give me glory in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed.”
Richter writes eloquently about this; “If humanity would simply acknowledge the innate authority of the Creator, would recognize that they were tenants and stewards in God’s garden, they would live in paradise forever. But if they had to have access to every part of the garden, if they had to “be free” to choose their own rules and decide for themselves what was “good and evil,” if they had to be autonomous of the authority of the great King, then they would die. You know the story. The choice was autonomy. The covenant was broken and the curse was enacted.”
God’s original plan, his original covenant with humanity was defined in first relationship with humanity as communicated in Genesis 1-2. Genesis 1 has a sweeping, panoramic view of creation that emphasizes the transcendence of God; Genesis 2 is more “anthropomorphic” in its approach, portraying God with the human qualities of first a craftsman (Gen 2:7), then a gardener (Gen 2:8), and finally a builder (Gen 2:22). I believe that Genesis gives us God’s original intent. Kline writes “Humanity, male and female unlike all the others, was made in the very image of God, as God’s representatives on earth and have been appointed as his stewards of all the wealth and beauty of paradise to exercise rule over a vast spheres of God’s creation, but subject to the supreme dominion of him who is Lord of the Sabbath.”
Richter concludes this thought this way; “This is who Yahweh is, who humanity is and how both relate to the creation. Moses confirms God’s original intent in Genesis 2:15; “Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate [ʿābad] and keep it [šāmar]. Adam and Eve are given each other (Gen 2:18-25), and as is implied by Genesis 3:8, they are given full access to their loving Creator. The only corner of the garden which was not theirs to use and enjoy was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In essence, Adam and Eve are free to do anything except decide for themselves what is good and what is evil. Yahweh reserves the right and the responsibility to name those truths himself.
Here the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve would learn life at the feet of the Father, build their city in the shadow of the Almighty, create and design and expand within the protective confines of his kingdom. A civilization without greed, malice or envy; progress without pollution, expansion without extinction. A world in which Adam and Eve’s ever expanding family would be provided the guidance they needed to explore and develop their world such that the success of the strong did not involve the deprivation of the weak. Here government would be wise and just and kind, resources plentiful, war unnecessary, achievement unlimited and beauty and balance everywhere.
This was God’s perfect plan. Richter calls it “the people of God in the place of God dwelling in the presence of God.” Yet, as with all covenants, God’s perfect plan was dependent on the choice of the vassal. Humanity must willingly submit to the plan of God. This was/still is God’s original and future plan which has been temporarily delayed by the vassals’ rebellion. In rebelling, humankind lost all the peace and unity of God’s paradise and original intent to dwell with him forever. The ones made in the image of God could not be forced or coerced, but instead were called upon to choose their sovereign. And choose they did. God’s original intent was sabotaged by humanity, stolen by the Enemy. Adam rejected the covenant, and all the cosmos trembled. Genesis 2:17 makes it painfully clear what the consequences of such an insurrection would be: in that day, “you shall surely die.”
God’s blessings and benefits become a burden as man exchanges paradise for prison. The final scene of this heartbreaking drama is that Yahweh drives his children from his presence, and the place that Adam and Eve were privileged to protect is now protected from them. This final curse embodies all that has gone before. Adam has lost Yahweh, and now the people of God will live in exile from both his place and his presence. By their own choice, Adam and Eve are separated from their Creator. With the fall, humanity loses their identity as God’s people, their place in his paradise and their access to his presence. Intimacy with God, which was the essence of humanity’s existence, is shattered. Rather than being casually welcomed into God’s presence like a child by her parent, now an armed cherubim stands between humanity and their Creator. The paradise that had been their home is now inaccessible to them.
But amazingly, mercifully, even though Yahweh had every right to wipe out our rebellious race, out of hesed, he chose another course-redemption. In a move that continues to confound me, God spared the lives of Adam and Eve (and their unborn children) by redirecting the fury of the curse toward another, the battered flesh of his own Son. This is the one the New Testament knows as “the last Adam” (Rom 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:22, 45). And although the first Adam did not die, the second surely did. God’s story is told by diverse people in diverse narratives, poems, laws, rituals, apocalyptic and other genres, a central story that Kelle says “can draw readers into those materials in new and imaginative ways.”
Relating:
In considering these, what does it mean to become a part of God’s story? I see the answer in two folds. Firstly, mankind has become part of God’s story as God mercifully spares him and chooses to save him. Secondly, mankind was in trouble and stands condemned needing to be redeemed and bought back for God by one chosen and sent by God (the woman’s seed in Genesis 3:15), who would always keep the Lord in front of him, completely fixing his eyes on God and obeying him and paying for man’s rebellion. (Romans 5:1-2, 6-11). To find ourselves in God’s story therefore is to know what it means to be human, to have huge freedom and responsibility, to respond to God and to be held accountable for that response, put here to develop the hidden potentials in God’s creation so that the whole of it may celebrate his vast glory. Paul through the Holy Spirit summarizes the Edenic activities, God’s original plan and Man’s rebellion and fall that brought curse and nature’s rebellion against him. It is as though Paul had this in mind when he wrote “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. . . . That, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom 5:19, 21). We find ourselves in this story as we participate in rebellion in our day even though we may not have sinned in the exact way that Adam sinned.
Reflecting on God’s Story and Finding Ourselves
Bartholomew and Goheen posit that “The Israelites first come to know God (through Moses) as their Redeemer; only afterward do they learn of his role as the Creator.”
This knowledge came from Moses telling them his conversations with God and relating to them how God has seen their oppression and heard their cries in Egypt. These conversations help them make God’s story their own since it was God’s desire to deliver them from oppression and cruel treatment. I think that for us today, even though we live so much further along in the biblical story, knowing that this same God had promised to extend Abraham’s blessing to all nations draws us into the equation of God’s intent for his own human imagers and all creation.
Responding to God’s Story
Kelle in his “Telling the Old Testament Story”, writes “Telling a story can give people a new way to understand their past and present lives, and relate memories to posterity”. (Italics are mine). In Deut. 6:20-25, Moses gives a classic advice to the ancient Israelite parents, saying, when confronted with a question that is ostensibly about rules and their justification, they should respond by telling a story of what their God, YHWH, has done for them because for them, it is that salvation story that makes sense of the ways they live as a community.
“Finding ourselves in God’s story is incomplete with appropriate response. I believe that God himself invited us into his story of reigning, ruling over, exercising dominion and stewardship over his creation, (creating us in his own image speaks loudly to this), our participation is an obvious imperative. Also since mankind opted to define knowledge and evil for themselves and consequently lost the unity, peace, and his place in God’s garden (paradise), God has pursued his global redemption agenda of rescuing, and buying mankind back into his Eden. His story is accomplished in Jesus Christ of Nazareth from the line of David, the promised redeemer who gave a blow to the evil (brought by man’s rebellion), allowing evil to unleash its maximum power on him killing him in the process as God had scripted and determined before the foundation of the world.
Finding our place in God’s story calls for a heart-based response to the message of peace announced by Jesus Christ through him we may be rescued into peace with God.
I conclude by echoing Kelle; we respond to God’s story telling who he is in worship, and what he is doing in the world-rescuing his imagers (us) from his wrath against evil, and to who we are and what we are made for, and finally how we should live in the world.
