LEARNING UNIT 2. Reading the Old Testament? What for?
In the following pages I will try to explain why reading the Old Testament should be part of every Christian's life. And this, despite the difficulties that the text may present for a correct interpretation of its message.
In the first place I will mention what I consider the obvious and at the same time the fundamental reason: the OT is part of the Holy Scriptures and also in its pages can be found the revelation that God makes of himself. Therefore, as believers we should be interested in knowing what God has and wants to say about himself and about us; and about the most fruitful way to live the life that has been given to us. Let us remember what the apostle St. Paul tells us about the usefulness of Sacred Scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16-17: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly furnished unto all good works”. But, in addition to this evident motive there are, I believe, more reasons; or perhaps it is the same but seen from other angles and perhaps expanded and clarified.
2.1. The OT shows what God is like.
This is a most important point. We tend to think that God can only be known through the pages of the NT, through the words and works of Jesus, and while it is true that in Jesus we find the most finished expression of God's self-disclosure, nonetheless in the writings of the OT we find a face of God which is none other than the one we find in the writings of the NT. There are not two Gods, one of wrath in the pages of the OT and the other one of love in the pages of the NT. God is one and the same in both the Old and New Testament. God is portrayed in both the OT and the NT as an infinitely good, wise, and powerful being, the beginning and end of all things, who rewards the good and punishes the bad. And the OT tells us this in a lively and passionate way [Sometimes, we can be confused by the modes of expression characteristic of that ancient culture and of the Hebrew language, and this can make us lose sight of the authentic meaning of the texts as we become trapped in the external web of words with which that profound meaning is expressed. This is, however, our problem and not the problem of the texts.]. It is true that, as with other ancient religions, God has two complementary faces in the OT [ but this is also true in the NT]: what R. Otto calls "the fascinating" and "the tremendous". On the one hand God attracts us and on the other hand he terrifies and overwhelms us. But this aspect does not obscure or minimize the presentation of God as the attractive, which opens the door to the presentation of God as Father. WHAT PORTRAIT DOES THE OT PAINT OF GOD?
2.1.1. Self-Portrait of God Exodus 34,6-7
6 The Lord passed in front of him [Moses] and proclaimed: “The Lord! The Lord! a God who is compassionate and merciful, very patient, full of great loyalty and faithfulness, showing great loyalty to a thousand generations, forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion, yet by no means clearing the guilty, punishing for their parents’ sins their children and their grandchildren, as well as the third and the fourth generation.”
This is how God portraits Himself. Notice the use of five adjectives that underline his nature as a God of love: COMPASSIONATE, MERCIFUL, PATIENT, LOYAL, and FAITHFUL. None of this has anything to do with the vengeful and terrible God we picture in the OT. And what follows is but a confirmation of this. It is true that God does not tolerate evil [evil destroys human beings, how could a loving father tolerate that which harms his children...], but what this text is telling us is that God's capacity, his will, to forgive is far superior to his will to punish. This is noticeably clear in the image of the generations. While his mercy, his forgiveness, his compassion, extends to a thousand generations, punishment only extends to four. Of course, this should not be taken literally in the sense that God arbitrarily punishes children for the sins of their parents or grandchildren for the sins of their grandparents. What the text wants to emphasize is the immense contrast between a thousand generations and four. Between the infinite capacity and infinite will of God to forgive and his little desire to punish. God does not enjoy punishment; he is a God who longs to forgive. And this idea is repeated in many other OT passages, e.g. Psalm 86,15; Psalm 99,8; Psalm 103,3.8-14, Psalm 136, Psalm 145,8-9; Isaiah 43,25; 44,22; etc.
2.1.2. Love and Forgiveness in the OT: God's Gift to Israel
We have seen how God speaks of himself and his compassionate nature. But if there is one author who has been able to portray, as no one else, the desire of God to forgive and how difficult it is for God to punish or maintain his anger, it is Hosea. In chapter 11 Hosea compares God's relationship with Israel to a father's relationship with his son. God, as a father, "loves", "calls", "teaches to walk", "heals", " leads", " bends down to feed". Israel, the son, "goes away", "does not understand his father", "does not put his trust in him". He is the prototype of the rebellious son who, according to the law, must die (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). However, God fights with himself, and mercy overcomes wrath.
‘How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboyim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. 9 I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I devastate Ephraim again. For I am God, and not a man – the Holy One among you. I will not come against their cities. Hosea 11,8-9
We have often been told that God cannot tolerate sin, that if He were man He would forgive because men are imperfect and cannot maintain perfect justice to the end. Yet in this text we are told exactly the opposite. Precisely because he is God and not a man, he does not let himself be carried away by wrath, he controls it, he overcomes it and can forgive. Had he been a man, his desire for revenge would have dominated him and he would have acted as a devastating enemy. This fatherly image of God is the one that will reach the NT via Jeremiah [31:20] and reaches its highest expression in the parable of the prodigal son.
In Isaiah 54:7-8 we find the same idea that we have seen in Exodus 34:6-7, although with a different wording. It is the same contrast between the thousand generations of mercy and the four generations of punishment, between the brevity of God's wrath and the immensity of God's compassion for his people. Certainly, the people have suffered, but this does not mean that God has closed his heart to them, it has simply been an outburst of anger that has lasted for a moment while mercy is ultimately eternal victor.
‘For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,’ says the Lord your Redeemer. Isaiah 54:7-8
If anything becomes crystal clear by reading the OT, it is the absolute certainty that the people of Israel have of God's love for them. It is true that there are hard and difficult times, but those times are meant to help the people mature and improve, or else they are punishments for the sins of the people. But in any case, they are short and momentary situations and God's mercy always ends up prevailing. Bottom line: God's love for his people is unwavering.
2.1.3. Wait, but not just for Israel!
Yes, God is love. God is undeniably love for Israel. He behaves like a father with his children or a loving husband with his wife. But is that all? Does God's love for humanity end there until the Incarnation of Christ? You already know the answer, it is a NO. And a resounding NO [that is why the capital letters]. We have seen so far that, in the OT, God is defined as a God of mercy, patient, forgiving and faithful. We have seen that the Jews were truly clear about the faithfulness and love of God. But God’s love does not stop there, the OT also affirms that God's mercy and forgiveness also reaches the pagan peoples, even those who are bitter enemies of Israel. That is what the story of Jonah is about. We all know the story of Jonah and the whale, we have heard it told and we have told it countless times, now, have we understood its meaning?
Jonah is given the mission to go to Nineveh to denounce his sins. But wait, Nineveh, capital of the Assyrian empire at the time of its greatest splendor, had remained in the consciousness of Israel as a symbol of imperialism, of the most aggressive cruelty against the people of God. It represented not the pagan world as such, but the oppressors of all time. It is to them that Jonah must address himself. At first, he refuses this mission and flees in the opposite direction, towards Tarshish. We think that he does this out of fear. However, the reason is deeper, as he indicates at the end of the narrative:
He prayed to the Lord, ‘Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Jonah 4,2
Jonah knew beforehand that God is a merciful and compassionate God and not only to Israel but to all who repent of their evil ways and turn to Him. Hence Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh, because he knew that it would not be destroyed. Under these circumstances, Jonah thinks, it is not worthwhile to go to Nineveh and risk his life to announce a punishment that is not going to happen.
In a nutshell, the above, although brief, suffices as an example of how inappropriate it is to describe the God of the OT as a stern grim and angry God; more familiar with punishment than with forgiveness; closer to anger than to love. The picture we have drawn in our minds of the God portrayed in the OT is the result of a lack of knowledge of these books and what is really said in them, or else it comes from biased hatred, resentment or slander. It seems to me that this denies one of the main hoaxes about the God of the OT. Of course, in the OT you can learn many more things about God's character and how He acts, and as we read the OT texts, we will learn new things about God.
2.2. The OT: a mentor for daily life
The OT is also very practical, not only because in it we can find many good and useful advices for life, but because it provides us with a good number of examples of life, examples of flesh and blood. Men and women who amid the most diverse life situations [poverty, wealth, pain, joy, sickness, suffer, betrayal, peace, war...] have been able to maintain their fidelity to God. All of them with their virtues and flaws, their successes and failures, their struggles, their falls, and victories like each one of us.
Many times, Christians do not know how to react to moments of deep crisis, we are afraid to offend God with our words, actions, or thoughts. In those moments he comes to our aid, as a sure model of behavior, Job. Job rebels, struggles with God, and questions Him in search of an answer. There is nothing passive or resigned in Job. If someone feels that their faith becomes empty and futile there, the author of the book of Ecclesiastes is presented as an example. No doubt his experience will serve as a source of comfort to them. Examples like these spring up abundantly in the pages of the OT, to the extent that the author of the letter to the Hebrews, when he wants to offer his readers examples of life that can serve as an example for their faith, turns to the OT to find them [Hebrews 11] We should not see these OT people as distant and alien to us because they did not know Jesus, but as "a great cloud of witnesses to the faith".
Of course, in the OT we will find examples of what should be done but also of what should be avoided. It is a very thorough manual. As we read the OT, we will gradually discover this huge wealth of experience it has to offers us.
2.3. The OT opens the door to fully understand Christ
It is an interesting and fruitful task to discover how the OT texts [not all, of course, but many] help us to better understand certain actions and words of Jesus. Jesus, like the Jews of his time, knew the TaNaKh and many of the things he did and said, he did them and said them with events in mind that the witnesses could fully identify because they came from the pages of the OT. In this way Jesus, in his ministry is in continuous, full, and enlightening dialogue with the OT. As He Himself said, I have not come to abolish the law [the Torah] but to bring it to perfection [Matthew 5,17] through total obedience to God. Therefore, knowledge of the OT opens the door to know Jesus and his ministry better. This is especially true of the Gospel of Matthew, a Gospel written by a Jew for a Jewish audience. There are many texts in the Gospels that could serve as examples of this: Matthew 21:14; Matthew 13:31-32; and Matthew 2:16-18, etc.
But let us focus on the programmatic speech of Jesus, as we can find it in Luke 4:16-30, Jesus is invited to read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, this text offers us a summary of what the ministry of Jesus looks like. Its center is the quotation from Isaiah 61:1-2, but without forgetting 1 Kings 17:1-9 [WIDOW OF ZAREPHATH], 2 Kings 5:14 [NAAMAN], and Zephaniah 2:3 [‘ANAWIM’, "the poor who seek God's salvation"] and, of course, the use Jesus makes of the Scriptures as He applies them to Him [Lk 14:21: "This scripture which you have just heard has been fulfilled this day"].
The programmatic discourse that Luke places in the synagogue of Nazareth is the first of the five great discourses of Matthew's Gospel: the well-known Sermon on the Mount [Mt 5-7]. The fact that Matthew places five discourses should already give us a clue as to where he is pointing, since five are also the books of the Torah [Pentateuch], attributed to Moses. Furthermore, he places this discourse on the mountain, also on a mountain, Mount Sinai, Moses gave the Law to the people, the Beatitudes are nine with a double one, so we could say that they are 10 as 10 are the commandments that Moses gave to the People of Israel. But Jesus is far superior to Moses, this is why Jesus says: "You have heard ... but I say to you". When Jesus says: "but I say to you" he is not abolishing the commandment but perfecting the old teaching and giving it back its authentic meaning. At the end of his sermon Matthew tells us that "the multitudes were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as his scribes" [Matthew 7:28]. And Matthew wants to underline this, that Jesus is a new Moses but that he is far above Moses. Moses received the Law from God, Jesus speaks directly from what is within him because he has seen God, unlike Moses [John 1,17-18: “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known”]. When Moses went up the mountain, the people could not follow him [Exodus 19,12-21], but the people could follow Jesus [Matthew 5,1]. Finally, a small but especially important commentary on those verses of the Gospel of John that I just quoted, John opposes the law to "grace and truth". These two terms designate in the OT the intimate essence of God. Moses can only transmit something external, a revelation granted to him by God. Jesus embodies the essence of God. And the evangelist adds that "no one has ever seen God". This is a clear reference to the Sinai episode, when Moses asks God to see his face, and God denies him: "You cannot see my face, for no one can see it and remain alive" [Ex 33:20]. Jesus, instead, the only Son who is at the Father's side, can perfectly explain to us who God is.
In summary, the OT gives us the real measure of this texts, Jesus in choosing the Mountain and saying what he says engages himself and his audience in a dialogue with the OT and shows them [and us] the real meaning and the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. And in the end, he shows us what God looks like because he comes from God.
5.2. Unit 2
5.2.1 Hebrews 11
Faith in Action
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.
By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.
By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.
By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.
By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.
By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.
By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and the application of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.
By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.
By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days.
By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.
And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.