Table of Contents#

1. Introduction: Why Identifying Patterns in Data is Important
2. All Scripture is God-Breathed
3. Progressive Revelation in Church History
4. Did the Lord “Strike Down” the Egyptian Firstborn, or Did Destroying Angels?
5. Ezekiel and Jeremiah Corrected Moses
6. God’s Desire for Intimacy over Obedience
7. Conclusion
8. Notes

Introduction: Why Identifying Patterns in Data is Important#

In 1854, there was a cholera outbreak in London that killed 616 people, and no one knew the source. But one physician, John Snow, brillinatly mapped the cases of cholera and noticed a cluster of cholera cases around a specific water pump on Broad Street in Soho, London. Snow found out that the water around this pump was being contaminated by human waste, and his research pioneered new ground in public health.

In 2008, the housing crisis in the US triggered the “Great Recession” and slowed down half of the world’s economies. In the US, it is estimated that 30 million people lost their jobs and household net worth dropped by 10 trillion dollars.¹ But there was one savvy investor who identified a growing trend: people defaulting on housing debt. Michael Burry was able to predict the massive crisis, and “shorted” the housing market and made 100 million bucks!

Identifying trends can be powerful. This study aims to understand a fascinating trend in Scripture: that God’s self-revelation progressively becomes more clear over time. We are going to look at a lot of examples that you may have seen, and many examples you probably have not seen. And the benefits of this study should yield the following results:

1. It will reveal God’s nature and how He inspires His word patiently through imperfect people.
2. It can eliminate some confusion some Christians create when the Old Testament is quoted and taught in a way that implies that it is “on par” with the New Testament.
3. It helps us interpret the Old Testament “christologically”, meaning that we read the Old Testament through the lens of Christ.
4. It lays some of the foundation for understanding how to interpret OT violence, which not only can answer some of our personal questions, but also help address challenging questions about the OT brought up by skeptics.
5. It can explain some apparent “contradictions” in Scripture.

All Scripture is God-Breathed#

As we continue this study, I want to make it clear that, as an evangelical Christian, I 100% believe that all Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16), and is the infallible Word of God, which includes the Old Testament. Jesus clearly believed the OT was God’s word. But this simple study will show us that we do not have the right to tell God what “infallible/inerrant” means and that Scripture may not always “behave” as we think it should.

We must let God and His Word decide what “infallible/inerrant” means, and take off our modern, scientifically bent glasses that distort our interpretation of Scripture, and often forces us to narrow-mindedly focus on single passages of Scripture rather than considering the whole of it.

Progressive Revelation in Church History#

The idea that God “progressively” revealed Himself over time, and was in some way “hidden” in the OT is not some new idea, but actually has been taught from the church fathers till now. Many Christians, including myself, have wrestled with God’s Word in the Old Testament, because God seems to appear more wrathful, vengeful, and angry than Jesus Christ. The Church has wrestled with this question before.

The great Church Fathers Justin Martyr and Irenaeus believed that some OT law was given to accommodate people’s hard hearts.² This would imply that God giving OT law was more for the people than for Himself.

Origen once compared Scripture to a ladder that ends with Christ,³ and that God spoke to ancient Israel the way a parent does with their child or baby, not using “grown-up” language but baby-talk.⁴ Basil the Great also taught that God revealed Himself incrementally over time in order to accommodate humanity’s inability to properly hear.⁵ The implication is that God’s word in the OT reflects God’s strategy to speak to an ancient people that doesn’t reflect His full nature, because Israel was not yet ready for full maturity, similar to how young toddlers sometimes need to be harshly spoken to more often than adults.

Augustine also followed this line of thought, believing that God releases His Word in a way that people can understand:

The art of medicine remains the same and quite unchanged, but it changes its prescriptions for the sick, since the state of their health changes. So the divine providence remains entirely without change, but comes to the aid of mutable creatures in various ways, and commands or forbids certain things at different times according to the different stages of their disease…⁶

Augustine attempted to reconcile the New and Old Testaments in terms of sonship. He reasoned that those who try to teach (heretically) that Old and New Testaments can’t come from the same God

…cannot deny that it would be perfectly just and possible for one father of a family to lay one set of commandments upon those for whom he judged a harsher servitude would be useful, and a different set on those whom he deigned to adopt into the position of sons.⁷

Augustine is most likely teaching this from Galatians 4:1-6 where Paul framed OT law in terms of a guardian for a child, until the time had fully come to be released from the guardian. One ancient Rabbi even taught something similar to show that God gave OT law to Israel to teach them the basics of obedience as a father would his son because of their ancient “ignorance.”⁸

Thomas Aquinas also believed that

…the things of God should be revealed to mankind only in proportion to their capacity; otherwise, they might despise what was beyond their grasp, with disastrous consequences. It was, therefore, better for the divine mysteries to be conveyed to an uncultured people as it were veiled by means of figures…⁹

Even the great Reformer John Calvin also refused to see perceived differences between the Old Testament and New Testament as impossible, because God cannot contradict Himself.¹⁰ Calvin also believed that God needed to in some ways “descend far beneath his loftiness” and speak to us like a nurse does to a baby in order for us to comprehend.¹¹ Calvin and other contemporaries also tried to explain why the Bible at some points seems to be at odds with science by saying that people spoke about things the way they saw them, rather than trying to teach science through what they wrote.¹² When Job described the sky as a hard dome, God let him because God didn’t force Job to have advanced scientific knowledge.

Not only in Christianity, but ancient Rabbis also affirmed the concept of “progressive revelation” and the closely related concept of “divine accommodation”. One 3rd century Rabbi, who is considered to be a strong representative Rabbinic thought,¹³ even said this:

The Holy One appeared to Israel with a stern face, with an equanimous face, with a friendly face, with a joyous face: with a severe face appropriate for the teaching of Scripture…Therefore the Holy One said to them: Though you see Me in all these guises, [I am still the one]---I am the Lord thy God.¹⁴

So the concept of “progressive revelation” is strongly rooted in orthodox Christian faith, and even Jewish theology.

Did the Lord “Strike Down” the Egyptian Firstborn, or Did Destroying Angels?#

In the Exodus narrative, Pharaoh refused to let God’s people go free from slavery, despite numerous devastating plagues. Due to Pharoah’s stubborness, God sees a need for the most devastating plauge: killing the firstborn of every Egyptian family.

Scripture says that God will personally “strike down” the firstborn when “…the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians…” (Ex. 12:23).

Most often, Christians tend to interpret the Old Testament in its most plain sense. But often the plain sense of this Scripture leads us to an uncomfortable picture of God killing people, which seems quite the opposite of Jesus, who lays down His life for sinners. How should we understand the plain sense of the Exodus passage?

Let’s let Scripture interpret Scripture, for we have commentary on this exact event from the Psalms:

He unleashed against them his hot anger,
    his wrath, indignation and hostility—
    a band of destroying angels.
He prepared a path for his anger;
    he did not spare them from death
    but gave them over to the plague.
He struck down all the firstborn of Egypt...
(Ps. 78:49-51)

Note that Exodus 12:23 says that it is God who will personally strike down the firstborn children in Egypt, but the writer of this Psalm thinks the destroying angels did it! So who “struck down” the firstborn? God and “destroying angels” cannot be striking children down at the same time; there must be a more nuanced way to understand this event. The narrative tells us that God’s wrath, indignation, and hostility came not by directly “striking down” the firstborn of Egypt, but rather by allowing “a band of destroying angels” to kill the firstborn.

I’ve covered this in detail elsewhere but English translations often miss the references to ancient gods other than Yahweh; in other words, demonic forces. For example, the Red Sea was seen as a hostile force that convulsed and writhed like a snake at Yahweh’s power (Hab. 3:15, Ps. 77:16-19), and the Hebrew word translated as “waters” is the name of Canaanite god (Yam). Other ancient near-Eastern cultures associated the “waters” with this god. As theologian Greg Boyd points out,

…these menacing deities are closely associated with aspects of nature and are frequently depicted as acting violently through these aspects of nature against various people or against other deities. Without additional research, readers who must rely on English translations of the OT cannot discern how prevalent these and other deities are in the OT since their names are almost uniformly translated as personified nouns (e.g., “Yam” = “sea”, “Mot” = “death”, “Resheph” = “plague,” “fire”).¹⁵

So in the above Psalm, “plague” and “hail” or “hailstones” are probably references to ancient gods (demons), similar to how they are more clearly presented as personalities later by the prophet Habakkuk:

Plague went before him; pestilence followed his steps.
(Hab. 3:5)

“Plague” and “pestilence” are the English translations for the two ancient near-Eastern gods “Deber” and “Rephesh” (in Hebrew). Scholars point out that the names for these demons can sometimes carry a metaphorical and/or physical meaning, but given Habbakuk’s personification of “plaugue” and “pestilence” and Ps. 78:49’s reference to “the plague” and “destroying angels”,¹⁶ it’s nearly certain that these Hebrew names were references to ancient near-Eastern “gods”, or, in NT terms, demons.

So in Psalm 78’s commentary on Exodus reveals some important interpretive insights:

1. The Lord released a “band of destroying angels” to execute the judgement, rather than personally doing it.
2. The Lord uses personal pronouns like “I” when He really means He lets other demonic forces carry out the judgement.
3. Psalm 78 was written later than the Exodus narrative, showing that God inspired the Psalmist to have extra details that the writer of Exodus didn’t have.

Ezekiel and Jeremiah Corrected Moses#

Jeremiah says of the Lord, “…he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone” (Lam. 3:33). And the Lord said through Ezekiel, “…I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” (Ezekiel 33:11).

But Moses thought differently.

When Moses warns of the penalty for the Israelites’ disobedience, he makes this statement:

Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you.
(Deut. 28:63)

Who’s right, Moses, or Jeremiah and Ezekiel lived 600-700 years after Moses?¹⁷

Attempts to reconcile these statements will certainly prove to be difficult; for Moses compares this pleasure being the same pleasure God took in prospering them; that is, the type of pleasure Moses is talking about is a positive delight.

This is none other than a sadistic, twisted form of pleasure in the death of the wicked. If we read any other story and found a deity taking genuine delight in destroying humans, we would rightly understand that the deity to be evil and/or demonic. Moses’ statement reveals the ancient Israelites’ understanding of God could at times be tainted. Why else would God later inspire Ezekiel and Jeremiah to essentially reverse Moses’ egregious representation of God’s character?

This is even more obvious in light of Jesus. Rather than thinking that God would find sadistic delight in destroying Jews who remained unfaithful, Jesus, as God, actually wept over the Jewish people’s unfaithfulness (Lk. 19:41-44). To me, then, it is no wonder why Augustine and Calvin both would teach that God would indeed adopt various strategies to accommodate the immaturity of his people in different stages of God’s relationship to the world.

Ezekiel and Jeremiah correcting Moses provides a crystal clear example of how we cannot always take an OT statement about God at face value without first letting other Scripture speak into it. From this example we can see that we need to let later OT authors influence our understanding of earlier OT authors. It also shows us God’s patience and character, to let Moses, who would become arguably the most revered prophet in all Israel, misrepresent his character.

God’s Desire for Intimacy over Obedience#

Following the analogy of the husband and wife relationship, the Lord Himself compared His relationship with the people of Israel as a husband-wife relationship, and describes His own feelings towards that relationship in no uncertain terms, and this husband-wife relationship is gloriously extended to all humanity:

“In that day,” declares the Lord,
        “you will call me ‘my husband’;
        you will no longer call me ‘my master.’...
    I will betroth you to me forever;
        I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
        in love and compassion.
(Hos. 2:16-23)

This passage was written by Hosea and describes a love-relationship where God desires Israel to not call Him “master” but “husband”.

In Exodus, however, God seems to actually delight and approve of a slave-master relationship, however. Hosea’s description of God seems to be at odds with the earlier revelation from Deuteronomy where God was pleased that they related to Him in a slave-like way (Deut. 5:23-28).

Ancient Near Eastern people groups generally assumed that whatever god they served desired a slave-master relationship.¹⁸ And Yahweh was willing to appear this way especially in the giving of the law on Mount Sinai where he approved of the Israelites’ slave-master attitude, when they feared to even talk to him.¹⁹

There is even more evidence that God was appearing in a way that accommodated their fallen, culturally conditioned view of the gods: The Law given on Mount Sinai has a striking similarity to “The Code of Hammurabi” —a set of laws given by the ancient Babylonian king Hammurabi in the 18th century BC. Other ancient near-Eastern laws are also similar to OT laws.²⁰ It is also evident from the biblical record that the Israelites were consistently tempted to abandon Yahweh for the gods of surrounding nations.

Because we see through Hosea’s prophecy that God’s ultimate desire was a husband-wife relationship, I submit that if God later in the biblical record revealed His desire for a husband-wife relationship, but still approved of a slave-master relationship, that is because the people of Israel needed God to appear in a way that was not His truest identity. In my opinion, this is the only way to make sense of the teaching of Scripture.

God even accommodated their desire for a human king (1 Sam. 8:4-22), lamented that He couldn’t “pasture them like lambs in a meadow” because “the Israelites are stubborn” (Hos. 4:16) and had to resort to testing and refining the Israelites because of their sin (Jer. 9:7). Should we really be surprised to think that God appeared to be a certain way in order to reach an ancient people? This is probably why Christian leaders like Augustine and Calvin believed that God had to talk the way adults talk to babies who cannot understand them. All of us know that when parents use baby-talk or toddler-talk, their speech doesn’t reflect their true adult nature.

Conclusion#

This article surveyed various ways where the OT critiques itself and reveals fascinating inner-biblical conflict. The biblical data we have surveyed so far has shown us the following data points:

1. OT authors can correct earlier OT authors.
2. OT authors can add in extra details older OT authors left out.
3. Some OT authors didn’t mind equating God and the forces of darkness with the same activity (e.g., striking down the Egyptian firstborn children).
4. OT authors depicted God as approving of a slave-master relationship, even though a later prophet (Hosea) made it clear that type of relationship was not God’s ultimate desire.

Part 2 of this series reveals even stronger evidence that this is the case in some fascinating examples, such as a later OT author substituting Satan for God in a narrative, how God’s original intention was for Israelites to take the promised land without violence, and how Paul distanced God from violence in an OT narrative.

Read part 2 here.

Notes#