The Clowney lectures I'm currently working through are the "Christ and the Old Testament" lectures from Westminster California on iTunesU. During his second lecture, he brings up the necessity of God condescending to earth in order to fulfill his promises. "God has to come because the situation is so bad that nobody else can handle it, and God must come because the promises are so great that only God can deliver on them." He then goes on to defend this view from a few examples which include the valley of dry bones and the worshipers in Egypt and Assyria that pass through Jerusalem to worship with each other. He finally comes to the illustration of Abraham. Abraham was told that God would give him offspring as numerous as the stars. Abraham believed this, but in his weakness he took matters into his own hand with Hagar and brought a son forth himself. When God told him that it would be Sarah would bear the child, he laughed and plead for Ishmael to be the child of promise. Clowney unpacks what is being communicated by Abraham quite well. "Lord, be reasonable. Lord, work with what you got. Lord, quit promising the impossible...Look Lord, I've taken some initiative in this matter, I've made some arrangements...Don't be so ridiculous. Take Ishmael. He's right here. Let him be the seed of the promise. The world is just full of Ishmaelite theology."
Sunday morning's sermon continued going through the list of saints in Hebrews 11.32. This week my pastor preached from Judges 11.29-40, one of the more controversial portions of scripture: Jephthah and his oath to God. The text is normally understood to be a story in which Jephthah makes a foolish oath before God promising to offer human sacrifice to God in exchange for victory, and then gets stuck in his oath sacrificing his daughter, his only child. My pastor argues that this is a gross misunderstanding of what scripture is actually teaching. He argues from the original language, Jephthah's knowledge of law and devoutness of faith, and the response of his daughter, that what we see in the text is an offering of ascension in which his daughter was dedicated to service of God in the tabernacle for her entire life. (I assume this position from here on. You can hear the sermon here for the defense of this view). Jephthah took an oath before God rather hastily, and God granted it. In so doing, Jephthah was given victory and a kingdom, but his daughter was taken from him. His plans for his future were radically altered by God in a bitter providence, but Jephthah kept his oath. Jephthah's daughter had her future undone as well. There would be no marriage, no child in her future. God promised salvation through the seed of a woman, but it would not be her. The line of Jephthah would end with a virgin daughter, and her virginity would be for a lifetime.
The point from both of these examples is simple. God is sovereign. As a good reformed Christian, I understand this, but in real life situations this truth can be painful. In Abraham we see God's sovereignty in spite of our sin and disbelief. We see that our efforts to fulfill the promises of God are futile. Those efforts will lead ultimately to nothing but pain and strife, as they did between Abraham's two sons, one an illegitimate son and the other the son of promise. When we take it upon ourselves to do what only God can do, what God has promised to do, we bring forth pain and suffering. Ishmael was Abraham's denial that God actually can fulfill his promises. In spite of this, God fulfilled his promise. What we see in the life of Abraham is that God is faithful to his promises even when we are faithless.
In Jephthah we see God's sovereignty in our faithfulness and submission to his plans when they completely uproot our lives. As we, in faith, try to actualize the plans we have for our life, God has little regard for our plans and will accomplish his plans for our life. Oath taking is quite serious. It is better never to take an oath than to take an oath without the intent or ability to keep it. Jephthah made a foolish oath, but he was faithful to the extent that he suffered. God will indeed accomplish his plans and deliver us from our enemies, but it will not always be done in a way that want, or a way that is comfortable and painless for us. What we see in the life of Jephthah, and the life of his daughter, is that God's plans for our lives have supersede for our plans.
Ultimately, what we learn about from the story of Abraham is that the seed of promise will be given by God, be sacrificed, and then rise from the dead. What we see in the life of Jephthah and his daughter is that it will be God who delivers his people by the sacrifice of his only Son. What we see in both of these stories is the same thing, Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, dedicated strictly to the service of God, who will lay down his pure, innocent life to take away the sin of the world. Abraham could not fulfill the promise, Jephthah could not bring lasting victory. Clowney's words are fitting here. "The trouble with the Lord is that he destroys his own credibility by promising too much. God would be so much more believable if he didn't promise so much." Thanks be to God that in the God-man Christ Jesus, all the promises of God, as unbelievable as they may be, are yes and amen!
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