Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and today I'm going to start a new little mini series on the theme of fire. Now, the theme of water gets a lot of traction in Christian circles, but less so the theme of fire, even though they actually are quite related.
[00:00:34] Fire only seems to crop up from time to time in eschatology with the end of the world ending in flames. Although we can question what that means. Does the world end in destruction or does the world get renewed by purification where the bad is burned off and the good remains? Well, I don't have an answer for you there, but I'll say that it makes some sense that water is a more comfortable metaphor than is fire. Water is a little bit safer, we might feel, because certainly water is an immediate need for life, but water can prove to be just as stunningly and suddenly destructive as fire can.
[00:01:18] But we're not only gonna be talking about destruction. In Scripture, fire is not just judgment. And usually when we use the word judgment, we're talking about punishment, right? We're talking not about judgment for good, but usually we're talking about judgment for bad. It's really easy to hang judgment onto the concept of fire in Scripture.
[00:01:42] But fire is also a boundary marker and a guardian of holy space. It tests fitness for nearness and it frames post Eden approaches to God long before we even get to Sinai.
[00:01:57] Scripture provides two great reset images, water and fire. In Noah's day, water uncreates the world and then it recedes so that life can begin again. And God promises no second flood. And in the end it's not about another flood, it's about fire as we see later on.
[00:02:20] But we can see this as a kind of purging. The earth and the works done on it will be exposed, and we are to look for a new heavens and a new earth. We might think of water as removing dirt and grime and filth, and fire on the other hand, is something that refines. It burns away the bad stuff so that the good stuff will remain.
[00:02:46] Both of these are actually involved in baptism and certainly fire is a symbol that is associated with Pentecost, and many of us might realize that that is an echo of Sinai's fire, but not just Sinai's. What we have here is a picture of God's presence and at Pentecost, it's God's presence on the people so that they can live near him with reverence and hope.
[00:03:12] So we'll be talking about several different things in regards to fire, and we'll be looking at a lot of Scripture today.
[00:03:20] You'll probably not be surprised to hear me bring up frame semantics. I want you to think about what frames of fire are in play in each of these Scriptures that we'll be talking about. Some of our options are: fire as a guardian, fire as a purifier. Fire as a theophany or an appearance of God, fire as a judgment, and fire as an empowerment.
[00:03:48] Quite often we'll see fire in the realm of a boundary map. It is drawing boundaries. So where is the boundary line being drawn? Who is the one drawing it, and how is that boundary line crossed? We can also think of fire in terms of a fitness test. What makes nearness to God possible? Are we talking about some ritual action? Are we talking about something that is in the realm of morality? Are we talking about covenant and does this involve the Spirit in a formal way?
[00:04:26] The first text we're gonna be starting with is the flaming sword of Eden in Genesis three. Now, of course, Eden, as I've said, is a kind of sanctuary prototype, and after what we call the fall, Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden. This is a form of exile, even though we don't have the actual word exile. So we have a removal from holy proximity. We'll talk some interesting things about this flaming sword and fire as a potentially live boundary rather than just an inorganic thing. Of course we'll talk about the cherubim in all of that as well.
[00:05:11] One of the things I want you to focus on here is the idea that judgment does not inherently mean punishment. I realize that we really tie those two things very closely together, don't we? That doesn't mean that judgment can't mean punishment or that punishment isn't involved in it, but it does not have to inherently be all about punishing.
[00:05:35] Let's go ahead and read Genesis 3 22 through 24. Quote, " Then the Lord God said, behold the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the Tree of Life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life." End quote.
[00:06:14] So let's look at this language here. It's a really interesting picture, right? And we're not quite sure in the text, depends on the translation you're reading how you might see this.
[00:06:27] The word cherubim here is definitely plural. So there's more than one of these entities here. It's a divine or spiritual being. It's a kind of a throne guardian. This is a common image across the ancient Near East that there would be throne guardians . And even divine throne guardians. And then we have this sword, but there's only one sword. That's not plural.
[00:06:53] So we don't have two cherubim with two flaming swords. So are we to think that the cherubim are swinging the sword together? Or are we to think that they keep passing it back and forth when one of them gets tired of swinging the sword, then the other one gets the turn. Or how are we supposed to see this?
[00:07:11] Well, there's a few different answers that scholars have provided for us here. The Hebrew word translated as flaming can mean burning, or it can mean consuming. It is a word that is associated with judgment . It seems like the sword is presented as a burning self animated object. It doesn't say that the two cherubim are holding it. It could be more than a weapon. It could be a sign of God's active holy presence for one idea there. But there's some other ones here.
[00:07:46] Now let's back up for just a moment to present the idea that fire often represents God's consuming holiness and purity throughout the Bible. Of course, we've been talking a lot about holiness and purity lately, and how those two things are connected.
[00:08:02] A sword might also symbolize separation, like the act of dividing something. So now here, suddenly we have a barrier between humanity, the man, and God's direct presence that they were able to access in the Garden of Eden . The association with the cherubim links all of that to guardian language. We often have the cherubim associated with the glory of God. They're in the tabernacle. And they're in theophanies in the book of Ezekiel.
[00:08:37] Some people will ascribe this flaming sword as a manifestation of God's Shekinah glory, kind of like the burning bush perhaps, or the glory that fills the tabernacle. But because it's a sword, it's something that divides and prevents access. The motif of fire as a divine boundary and judgment appears quite often. We have it at the Sinai incident in Exodus, and as I said in Ezekiel.
[00:09:10] What we can definitely tell from Genesis three is that the sword is blocking the way to the Tree of Life, and I have talked about this before as a mercy rather than a punishment, and it describes it that way. The man is prevented from being eternally locked in a fallen state, and as such, there is hope for redemption.
[00:09:32] I've also talked about how mercy and punishment are two sides of justice and judgment. So the image that we have actually unites this whole picture for us . The sword is judgment for sin in some sense, right? They can no longer access that holy space, but it's also a mercy to prevent their eternally staying in that state.
[00:09:57] Now this can also connect into our eschatological systems and different people will do that in different ways. But some systems actually have a story where we have the removal of the flaming sword to signify a reentry into paradise.
[00:10:14] Another thing we might think about with the sword functioning as a kind of a test, as well as a warning. Access to holiness requires purification and obedience.
[00:10:27] Okay, so let's look at this Hebrew phrase again. I'm not gonna get into the actual Hebrew terminology. I'm gonna translate that into English for you at least as far as different scholars have done that. A couple of different options we have here. We could have flame of the sword or we could have flaming sword. Or sometimes people will swap out this word flaming because it's not actually an adjective technically. So the construct in Hebrew translated into English might be something like "the flame of the sword that turns" rather than flaming sword. And importantly, that's going to open the door to some non weapon readings that I'll get to here in a minute. Another translation is fearsome sword.
[00:11:17] But really what is it? Is it a weapon as it seems to be? Is it a depiction of something that's more like lightning? That's another option we have. Or is it a concrete theophany, like the flame is God's presence directly.
[00:11:36] For those of us who enjoy things in the divine council worldview headspace, I'm going to give you a really interesting idea from Ronald Handel. He wrote a paper in the Journal of Biblical Literature in 1985. His paper is called "The Flame of the Whirling Sword, a Note on Genesis 3 24."
[00:12:00] And I'll just summarize it for you, basically. What he suggests is that what you have here is actually three different spiritual beings. You have the two cherubim, but then the sword is a third spiritual being.
[00:12:16] Handel draws upon ancient Near Eastern literature and parallels there, as well as some places in the Hebrew Bible where it seems like there may be a class of spiritual being that fits this kind of description. It's like a flaming guardian of some sort.
[00:12:34] It is a really interesting idea and he has quite a bit of stuff to back it up, although it's not always quite direct and some of the things he uses to back it up could be seen a little bit differently.
[00:12:48] One of the biblical texts that he uses is Psalm 1 0 4 4. He brings that into the discussion as a description of angels or win being like ministers of flaming fire or they're fiery attendents.
[00:13:05] Let me go ahead and read Psalm 1 0 4, 1 through four. Quote, "Bless the Lord, oh my soul. Oh Lord, my God. You are very great. You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with the garment. Stretching out the heavens like a tent, he lays the beams of his chambers on the waters. He makes the clouds his chariot. He rides on the wings of the wind. He makes his messengers, winds. His messengers a flaming fire." End quote.
[00:13:39] So in this kind of a reading, the sword is not just an inanimate object, it's an actual living being.
[00:13:46] Now whether that being looked like a flaming sword or just held one, probably the imagery we should be seeing is that this is a being who is holding a flaming sword or something like that.
[00:14:00] But of course there's other people who disagree with that interpretation. We have for instance, Murray Lichtenstein who wrote a paper called "The Fearsome Sword of Genesis 3 24," and he counteracts Handel's idea here.
[00:14:16] And his idea is that the sword is a picture of an ancient Persian scythed chariot wheel. We actually have this described in Greek historical accounts. Now, of course, that's gonna come a little bit later and we might maybe have the idea that somebody could have invented this kind of a wheel before that, but we don't have any description of it.
[00:14:42] So if you take a later date for Genesis one through 11, this interpretation makes sense and it's a little bit more descriptive, we might say. So you have a chariot wheel, and in the wheel is embedded a bunch of swords, right? So as the wheel is turning through an enemy crowd, it would actually cut people up. We have descriptions of this in battle. That would be very fearsome. And so the lightning aspect here would be like the glint of the sunshine on the sword as it turns. And we also have plenty of places in Scripture as well as the ancient world in general where swords and flame are connected. But it is like that flash that happens as you swing a sword.
[00:15:32] Lichtenstein's suggests that it is this chariot wheel because of the phrasing of the turning of the sword. Whereas Handel says that it's like a sword that's being swung about , Lichtenstein suggests that it's a sword that's turning. Because we have the same word used for other things in Scripture where something is actually rolling along like a wheel.
[00:15:56] Now, whether you prefer one description or interpretation or the other might depend on whether you're a little bit more geared toward seeing more spiritual beings versus you just want to have kind of a physical explanation of something. But those are two ideas of this flaming sword.
[00:16:17] To kind of support Handel's idea there is a really interesting dissertation that focuses on fire as a kind of theophany in Scripture or a hypostasis. It's kind of a fancy word. But the dissertation goes into whether or not we can see fire being described as a manifestation of God himself. Now, it's definitely associated with the manifestation of God, but whether or not it is the same as a manifestation is a little bit questionable.
[00:16:51] But interestingly enough, Simone, who wrote this dissertation references back to Handel's idea, and then he takes it a little bit further and connects it to Rephesh of the Arrow, suggesting a titled fiery agent in Yahweh's entourage. That's really interesting because if you're familiar with what Dr. Heiser talked about in regards to Psalm 91 and those spiritual beings that show up there, even though it's hard for us English readers to see those spiritual beings, right.
[00:17:25] So here's an indication of the disconnect between the ancient world and our world today, where we're not seeing the references to spiritual beings because we don't live there and we don't recognize their names and we don't see how connected they are to actual physical manifestations of things on earth. Things like disease and plague and war and things like that.
[00:17:52] You might notice that I said Resheph of the Arrow, not Resheph of the Sword. But again, an arrow and a sword can have kind of a glint that when it goes through the air, it can look like lightning or fire.
[00:18:09] And here's an interesting little aside. Dr. Heiser's idea of Psalm 91, at least part of it, is that the Bible is disallowing the existence of the beings that the ancient world at large believed, and I'm not really sure that's necessary to say that Psalm 91 is saying that these beings don't exist or that they're just natural phenomena.
[00:18:35] I don't think we have to go that far. What Psalm 91 would be saying is that those beings do not have their own control. Like they're still under God's control and God still has them on a leash, right? Like so in the ancient world, in Mesopotamia and Sumer, as I've been reading about from those Mesopotamian texts , some of the spiritual beings of that world were seen generally as having independent natures, right? There was no head deity who had full control over everything.
[00:19:14] Now, you could call upon that head deity, whatever he was at the time, and hope that he could deal with those evil demonic powers and those evil demonic beings. But it was kind of a magical ritual, incantation kind of a situation. What we have in Psalm 91 and throughout all of Scripture is that God doesn't need to work like that in order to have them under control. So you don't need to find the right ritual. You don't need to find the right names and the right words. All you have to do is to be under God's headship , be in relation to God, and God will protect you from those evil entities and those evil influences.
[00:19:59] Now, going back to this dissertation by Simone, and whether fire is or is not an independent agent, or at least a semi, semi-independent agent, he concludes that only in Genesis 15 does it clearly show that fire is acting as something like a semi-independent hypostasis, right? This is the torch of fire that functions as Yahweh's active presence.
[00:20:27] So it is and it is not Yahweh, and it is the binding and the cutting of the covenant. And the way we would see that is whether or not God is also acting. So generally Simone says that most fire of Yahweh texts behave like divine tools or weapons or associations rather than something that is personified and like it's taking on a life of its own.
[00:20:57] So that's just an interesting little bit of information that will probably touch on a lot of things we'll talk about as we go in this theme.
[00:21:04] Now, again, going back to the sword by the garden. We've got a bit of a problem with the plural cherubim and the single sword. We definitely have a lot of later depictions of angels and angelic type beings as sword bearers, but cherubs are not always seen that way.
[00:21:24] A little bit of a twist on this whole story is what we get with the Targums. A Targum is an Aramaic translation slash commentary that we have later on, right? So one of the Targums from Genesis three points at the idea that God settled or dwelt east of Eden with the cherubim and the sword flame. So we have the presence itself as a boundary and guarding the way like the literal Shekinah glory is seen here.
[00:21:58] There's a whole conversation we could have about that and how closely it actually aligns with what we have in the Genesis text itself. A Targum is a really interesting thing because it purports to be a translation, but it goes way beyond translation and functions as a kind of commentary. A lot of times the Targums toss in really bizarre points and bits of data where you're just like, why are they even thinking about this in this way?
[00:22:30] But if you compare the Targum with the text of Genesis, there's a little bit of flexibility, a little bit of interesting ideas you could have here, especially regarding things like little tiny particles or prepositions and all of those little fun grammatical points that we can get into really deeply and argue about.
[00:22:50] But one of the interesting ideas about the Targum is the intersection of how it's associating this fire imagery with God's presence . Did God settle between or above the cherubim and with the spinning sword flame? it's a really interesting picture, right?
[00:23:11] Now we might wonder also whether that kind of ruins the whole idea of even being kicked out of the garden, right? If they're still around God's presence, then what's up with the exile? But again, a lot of times we focus a little bit too much on the wrong data points in this.
[00:23:31] Genesis tells us that they are cast out of the garden and prevented from coming back in not because of God's presence exactly, but because of the Tree of Life. Now, we might associate that with God's presence, but then you go into the rest of Genesis and Scripture later on and you still see people interacting with God himself, especially early on. God is speaking directly to people and he's not using a mediator. he's not using an angel to provide that distance away from himself or anything like that.
[00:24:08] An interesting picture with God being present with the cherubim and the sword is that not only do Adam and Eve leave the garden, but God also abandons it. This might be a little bit of a parallel to what happens with the temple, right? When the Shekinah glory leaves the temple, then it's a picture of God leaving the people.
[00:24:34] And if the Garden of Eden is a proto sanctuary where we have God's presence, then God's presence leaves. But he doesn't fully abandon the people, and I think that's highly illustrative of what we can see because it's a different picture between God kicking them out and God staying in the garden of Eden, and God kicking them out, but God also going with them. But God's going with them is not the same as it was when they had communion back in the garden.
[00:25:11] And that seems to be a pattern that we see in Scripture of people drawing near to God then being exiled from the presence of God then drawing near again, but often in a different way. Right? So that might explain some of the things that we have in the Torah where we don't have a dedicated sacred space that is human built until the Ark and Noah and his family go on the Ark with all the animals.
[00:25:42] And then we don't have another dedicated human space until the Tabernacle, except in between the Ark and the Tabernacle, we have all of these alters, right? So it's not the case that people could not approach God. They had many ways in which to approach God, and of course we might wanna like rank those and say, this one's way better than that one over there.
[00:26:06] But the point is that God remains with his people pursuing his people trying to be with them.
[00:26:13] An interesting thing that I'm not gonna elaborate on today, but I'll toss this out for you guys and we'll talk about much, much later, I'm sure. Is this idea of east in the story here with the garden and the direction of east.
[00:26:29] When you see some sort of cardinal direction in Scripture, it's calling up some really big meaning for the people, and that meaning can be embedded directly into the story, like East can be part of this idea of exile. We often see that. Now, that does not mean that every last instance of the word east or the concept of east is going to mean exile.
[00:26:57] Because when you have an idea presented and it builds up in the story, sometimes that idea is then put on its head, and we see that from time to time. But another translation from "to the east" might be "from of old." And this brings up primordial eternal guardian kind of ideas. And it's very common in the ancient world that east is associated with the past or it's associated with birth. It's associated with time long, long ago.
[00:27:35] And that makes sense because the sun comes up in the east and it sets in the west. And so if you're thinking of life or you're thinking of chronology or time in general, then east is going to mean earlier and west is going to mean later. Just a really fascinating little tidbit for you there.
[00:27:54] And, all in all, what we have here are a few different ideas that we can play with. Are we looking at a divine counsel kind of framework with more spiritual beings?
[00:28:06] Does the sword indicate a little bit more like we have in the Targums with the actual presence of God still following the people as they leave? Either way, we have connections to holiness and presence.
[00:28:21] Okay, so I don't have a whole lot to go into here, but I do want to mention Genesis four, where we don't have the explicit flame in the text, but we do have Cain and Abel who bring their sacrifices and while the action of the sacrifice isn't described , it's quite likely that at least part of this sacrifice was burnt.
[00:28:45] And God regards Abel, but not Cain. And so there's a judgment here. Abel and Cain are both coming near to God, bringing a gift, and their gifts are judged. And there is a door, a threshold in this story. And so there's a boundary.
[00:29:05] So remember when we have the concept of frame semantics, we're looking at the idea that is being pulled up in general. When we're looking at the flaming sword , we have the association with the cherubim, with the Gate of Eden, with boundary lines. All of these things, right? So you get further into the story and even though not every element of that is there in say Genesis four, we still have those ideas associated with the previous one, right?
[00:29:40] Then we have after the flood where Noah builds an altar, we have a clear burnt offering here. The burnt offering is transformed by fire and carried toward God. The gift is consumed by God. And so there is definitely an association with drawing near to God and God's presence.
[00:30:02] We go on to Abram in Genesis 15. Another big story we have is Exodus three at the burning bush. We have a flame, and that flame is not actually consuming the bush. There's probably something very real to learn there. God says to Moses, don't come near, but here's the thing you have to do to approach me. Moses had to remove his sandals because the ground was holy.
[00:30:32] So in each of these places, we have boundaries. We have the idea of an approach, we have a verdict, or God weighings people in the balance. And so my point here is that if we see glory and fire as only or always or exclusively about judgment in the form of punishment, then we're not really seeing it rightly.
[00:30:58] It is the very presence of God where all of these ideas are coming up. Are we fit to come near and to be in God's presence? Because it's dangerous to be in God's presence because you will be judged one way or the other.
[00:31:15] Okay, so again, when you are doing your own study and you come across the idea of flame in a story or something that seems to call up these ideas. Couple of things that you can note when you are looking at these texts . There should be a boundary sign of some sort, whether it's explicit or implied. There is a human approach. That human approach can have a gift. It can be in the form of a certain posture or obedience. There is a verdict. The human is accepted or restrained or warned. There is some sort of mediating factor. There's like an altar, there's a covenant sign, there's holy ground. There's something that shows something. And then there's an outcome, there's a blessing, there's a commissioning, or there might be some form of discipline or again, a warning.
[00:32:16] So you can see why I'm bringing up the story of Cain and Abel into this picture even though we do not have explicit mention of the fire. The boundary marker there is the door and also the altar. There is a fitness test of Cain's posture toward God and his offering quality. There is a verdict. God will either accept you or refuse you. The mediation there is the warning that God provides and Cain obviously does not heed that warning. In fact, he goes and barrels down into even worse activity than he was doing before.
[00:32:58] Let's look a little bit more closely at Noah's alter in Genesis eight. Again, if we're doing a burnt offering, there has to be some sort of fire. So this is after the flood. And the burnt offering, the olah, is seen to rise as a pleasing or soothing aroma, which is a standard formula for accepted nearness. The burnt offering presumes that there's consuming fire. That is, again, transforming the gift into a kind of smoke that approaches God.
[00:33:33] Now, when we see sacrifice as being a kind of communal meal, the burnt offering is God's portion of it. Not that God must be satisfied or fed by humans because that is a pagan notion, not a biblical notion, but nonetheless, the pleasing aroma would be akin to like barbecue smell, and God is pleased by it because that indicates that he is accepting the person who is trying to draw near to him. The altar forms is a kind of mediated boundary.
[00:34:13] Let me go ahead and read Genesis eight 20 through 21 says, quote, "Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because a man for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done ." End quote.
[00:34:45] A lot of people will still see this as the moment that God's wrath is turned away. But as we've described, when you look at the actual narrative of the flood. It is a chiasm, and chiasm is kind of like a mountaintop.
[00:35:02] You have the text that leads up to a central point, and then the text leads back down the mountain on the other side. And the middle of the chiasm, the top of this mountain, is a point that is being stressed. And in the flood narrative, the middle of it all is God remembering Noah, which happens when Noah's still in the Ark and God is then going to act to remove the flood waters.
[00:35:31] So Genesis eight 20 and 21 cannot be an instance of God finally averting his wrath because that's already done. Something else is going on here. But there is kind of this covenantal formula, I would say, where God promises that he will never again curse the ground because of man.
[00:35:53] Is this because God is being appeased by this sacrificial gift? Or is it just a moment and an instance of covenant renewal and God making a promise to mankind? When God makes a promise to mankind, it's not like it's a brand new promise because God's relationship to mankind is not really based on whether or not man pleases God, because that would be man based.
[00:36:24] Instead, God's relationship to us is fully and completely embedded within himself. He is the one who fulfills the promises. He is the one who is rightly oriented toward us at all times. And we do our silly little things here on earth, but we don't upset God's promises and God's work.
[00:36:46] So again, we have an instance of a boundary here. We have the altar as another kind of micro sanctuary kind of a place. Here is the burnt offering that is transformed by fire and is accepted by God as a pleasing aroma. That's the verdict.
[00:37:04] This is the way that Noah is interacting with God and it's an act of gratitude. And in response to Noah's act of gratitude, God gives this covenant formula, and that matters because of the way that covenants worked in the ancient Near East . A covenant, you have the suzerain and you have the vassal.
[00:37:28] God is the suzerain. The suzerain responds to a plea or a request from the vassal. That's what you have in a covenant ceremony. The relationship already existed, but the vassal is going to ask the suzerain for some help, and the suzerain is going to respond with something. That's what's going on here. This isn't an instance of God saying, okay, fine. I guess you've appeased me. You've appeased my wrath. This is an indication of God making a promise as Noah and all of humanity's suzerain.
[00:38:08] I wasn't sure that we were gonna get into Genesis 15 just yet today, but let's go ahead and dig in at least briefly. What we have here is Abram falling into a deep sleep. We have a smoking fire pot and a torch of fire that passes between two pieces of animals that have been split apart.
[00:38:30] This is a covenant ritual. This is a covenant enactment. This is not specific to the Bible. This was an ancient Near Eastern covenant tradition. They would butcher animals, they would cut them into two pieces and lay those side by side, creating a path through the middle. The two covenant parties would walk this path.
[00:38:53] And in all likelihood, these animals are to represent the people who are walking through. They aren't substitutes for the people who are walking through. Because a substitute is the idea that the animal is going to take the place of the person, and that's not what's going on here. They are representatives of the people.
[00:39:17] If you do not uphold the covenant, then you become like these animals. That's the story that's being enacted here. So the animals are not taking the place of the person, they're representing the person and acting as a warning. But in a normal situation, both of the parties would walk through.
[00:39:38] However, Abraham, or I guess Abram, he does not walk the path. He is forced to fall asleep and Yahweh's own fire does. This is where the fire pot or perhaps the torch of fire, are functioning as Yahweh himself. These are representatives or enactments or presentations of God.
[00:40:01] This is probably the clearest pre-Sinai instance of fire acting as an operative presence itself, right? Like the fire is being like God . There is proxy element here, covenant being ratified, but the man is actually remaining at the boundary line and he's asleep.
[00:40:24] And so what about the idea of fitness?
[00:40:28] Well, we have the covenant here. God is the one who's guaranteeing the relationship and the covenant by his own presence. So none of it has to do with Abraham's performance and ability. This is a very common point that a lot of sermons like to preach on, and rightly so.
[00:40:47] In fact, let's go ahead and read it. Genesis 15, 17 through 21, quote, "When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying to your offspring, I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates. The land of Kennites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgishites and Jebusites." End quote.
[00:41:28] Now remember I just said that in an ancient Near Eastern covenant, you have the suzerain and the vassal, and the covenant is ratified and made formal , and the relationship between these two parties exists before the ratification of the covenant. And quite often there is that call from the vassel for the suzerain's aid.
[00:41:52] So do we see that in Genesis 15 ? We do. The beginning of the chapter in Genesis 15, Abram has a complaint. He's complaining to God that he does not have a direct descendant child. He doesn't have his own offspring, and so he has to have somebody else as his heir.
[00:42:13] And this is when God brings him out and he has to look at the stars in the sky and God tells him that his offspring will be like those stars. Couple of things about that is the number of them. Quite clearly there's a lot of stars in the sky. But there's also a suggestion that there is a radiance or a glorification that is indicated as well by the story, but we'll talk about that another time.
[00:42:41] But this is the context of the covenant situation here. Abram has a problem. He calls out to God and he says, God, what is the deal? I don't have my own offspring. And God does this enactment ritual to promise and guarantee the promises that he has given.
[00:43:01] Interestingly, it's after this where we have the incident with Sarai and Hagar.
[00:43:07] There's a lot to say about that. A lot of people will say that what they were doing was wrong, but we have to put ourselves in Abram's shoes. God just promised him something really big and important, and what we have then is the incident where they are supposedly taking things into their own hands and there is abuse that happens here. And I think fair enough we can say that.
[00:43:34] But we can't just put the blame on Abram and presuming that he understood what God meant, that he understood that God meant a miraculous thing happening.
[00:43:46] I mean, when we read the story, we already know the ending. We already know that there is going to be a physical, biological offspring, and we think that what's going on with Hagar and Ishmael is lesser, but Ishmael is still a promised child. He's still given as part of this promise. It's not like Ishmael is not part of the promise that God did give to Abram in Genesis 15.
[00:44:16] Ishmael can be just as much an answer to Abram's initial problem and complaint to God as Isaac was later. Okay, so that's the first thing to look at here. So back to Genesis 15 with this ritual ceremony. This is covenantal fitness by divine proxy. Abram could not walk the path that God went down because this is more than a mortal promise. It's a divine promise, a promise that God is going to fulfill himself. None of it was accomplished by Abram.
[00:44:50] The fitness part comes into play in the fact that Abram approached God, asked him the question, requested what he needed, and then he trusted in God. And I say that explicitly because the incident with Hagar does not mean that Abram did not trust God. I think that's the wrong picture here.
[00:45:13] Abram did trust God and he said, okay, this is how we're going to fulfill the promise, and it would have worked just fine, except that God did have other plans.
[00:45:26] The mediation was in the smoking fire pot and the torch. Again, forms of divine proxy or presence.
[00:45:36] Okay, so let's step back for a moment and look at the themes of fire that we've had already. We've had elements of judgment. We've had elements of boundaries. We have elements of mediation or sign acts we might say, and all of these show a willingness of God to engage with people and to pursue them, even though they don't even know that he's there all the time. And he gives people choices like with Cain, are you going to do what is needed in order to be accepted by me so that I can remain present with you and bless you?
[00:46:18] It's a very different picture than a really cookie cutter kind of narrative where Adam and Eve get kicked outta the garden and God wants nothing to do with evil humanity anymore. It's just not the picture we have here. There is this pursuit of God continually.
[00:46:36] And the story here in Genesis 15 is a beautiful picture of that. It's fascinating too, that we get multiple situations with Abraham, right? You would think in Genesis 15 with this story that this is where he would get his new name. But no, it's not until after the incident with Hagar and Ishmael.
[00:47:00] So in chapter 17 we have Abram who has another incident with God. God shows up and says again that he will establish his covenant. Notice that God is not rebuking Abram for what he just did. He is coming over and saying, I will multiply you exceedingly.
[00:47:20] Even though we had that kind of situation and the kind of idea in Genesis 15 with the offspring and all of that . Again, we tend to think of that in the realm of biology, but Abram would've been thinking in the realm of tribal hood, so Ishmael was part of that covenant, and we have multiple offspring. We have Ishmael, and now we're gonna have Isaac.
[00:47:45] So God has a really long speech here, explains what he is talking about with the covenant. And just like with Noah, after the flood, we have the word covenant over and over and over here. This is where we get the new name that we have with Abraham. This is where we get the circumcision. But I want you to note at the end of chapter 17 that not only Abraham was circumcised, but Ishmael is also called out as being circumcised as well.
[00:48:16] When we read these stories, we kind of compact them together and presume the earlier ideas include the later ideas, and part of my point here is just that we shouldn't do that. We should back up and allow the text to flow as it does without putting in later ideas into earlier parts. Not that they aren't connected, because there's a whole beautiful design pattern here.
[00:48:41] If you go out and you do some chiastic structures and all kinds of word patterns and things like that, you will see a lot of beauty come from these passages. But we have to be careful to not remove the narrative element of it as well and how it builds up to something.
[00:49:01] Okay, let's go ahead and end on talking about the burning bush in Exodus three. This is a fire that invites. And yet is also its own warning. Kind of gives a lot of what we've already talked about today in this episode. So we have a bush burning, not being consumed. Moses turns aside, he notices it. God calls his name, but tells him to not come near you first have to remove your sandals because this is holy ground.
[00:49:35] So we have a couple of paired commands that are going to give us a boundary line and an act of fitness that Moses is going to need to perform. So this is a theophany, which is a manifestation of God's presence and proximity requires reverent change in Moses's attitude, right? So Moses can come near, but there are some things he has to do first.
[00:50:03] Let's go ahead and read Exodus three, one through six. Quote, "Now, Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness, came to Horeb, the mountain of God, and the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked and behold the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called him out of the bush. Moses. Moses. And he said, Here I am. Then he said, do not come near. Take your sandals off your feet. For the place on which you are standing is holy ground. And he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God." End quote.
[00:51:08] When you read a passage like this and you see repeated elements, that gets really interesting . One of the things that jumps out to me here is the element of seeing. The Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire. In the middle of the bush. Moses looked and Moses beheld, and Moses said, I will turn aside to see the great sight. The Lord saw that he turned aside to see, and that is when God called him.
[00:51:42] We have the standard, here I am reply that indicates the subject is ready and willing to draw near to God.
[00:51:52] And at the end of the text I just read, Moses hides his face because he's afraid to look. So many interesting things packed into this little few verses. We have definite boundary markers here. There is holy ground over here. And Moses, in order to approach, has to take off his sandals because his sandals is gonna hold all of the dirt and all of the commonness from non holy ground.
[00:52:21] The boundary is you can't come near, unless. There is something you can do to make yourself fit to come near. And if you are able to do what is requested, then you are able to draw near and have an audience with the divine.
[00:52:39] There's mediation in the bush that's burning in the fire and also in the words used. So here, nearness to God is possible, but there's boundaries. There's things to be done, there's a test.
[00:52:54] And interestingly, even when God says, come on Moses, you can come over here, but you have to do what I'm asking. At first, Moses is really curious about the fire that's burning and not actually consuming the bush. But when God calls to him and says, draw near, just do this thing first , then Moses becomes afraid.
[00:53:17] I won't continue reading the chapter, but God says that he has heard the cry of Moses's people, and this is why he has come, to deliver them. And the whole purpose of God appearing here and drawing Moses to him is so that Moses can be called and sent to Pharaoh to be God's representative.
[00:53:42] So again, if we back up and we look at Genesis three, Genesis four, Genesis eight, Genesis 15, and Exodus three, there's some patterns that we see with judgment, with boundaries, and with God's heart to draw people near.
[00:54:01] I would love to hear from you guys whether or not you hear in your church contexts a lot about fire and glory, because in my experience, whenever glory is brought up, it's a confusing thing. It's like, I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what glory is or what it means . And fair enough, you know, because glory is used as a concept in many different ways.
[00:54:29] It attaches itself to things like these fire incidences and kind of light shows, and really dramatic situations. But the idea of glory is also associated with the fame of God's name, so that people hear about what God has done and they become in awe of him so that they can align themselves with him.
[00:54:54] Or if they don't want to align themselves with him, they can go somewhere else because here comes God, and if he comes and you are not ready and fit for his presence, you will be burned and destroyed. And I think that is what the conquest narrative is, and the whole story of God coming from Egypt, bringing his people from Egypt, doing it with this story of glory behind him.
[00:55:26] Because then as the people approach the Promised Land and as they enter into it, we hear stories of people who have already heard of God's glory. They've already heard of what God has done, what God is doing. And if they are not ready for him, then they know what's gonna happen then. They know the judgment that's going to fall upon them.
[00:55:51] And so the people get into the Promised land, and a lot of the people who were there already, they've left because they've heard of what's God is doing. They know what's gonna happen. And if they're not on board with communing with God and his people, then they're going to have to leave and they know that.
[00:56:14] So this picture of fire, of glory, of fame, and the very picture of kavod, this word glory, is connected to one of weightiness. So it's a heavy thing that lays upon people, and either you're ready for it and you are willing to do what you need to do in order to be in God's presence or you're not.
[00:56:39] And if you're not, well, that's dangerous.
[00:56:43] Okay , and the whole picture of glory is it gets confusing to us because again, we're just not in this ritual situation. This is not our worldview. And so it seems foreign and it's perplexing. And for us, fame and notoriety, well that's not necessarily a positive thing.
[00:57:06] But when you associate it with all of these concepts as a whole, then the picture starts fleshing out as to who God is, why his holiness matters, and why it would be necessary to have a purification ritual in order to participate in that holiness, right? If we're divorcing all of these ideas and we just leave it all in the past without any understanding of any of that, and then we try and live a Christian life where we're understanding baptism and communion, without this connection into the people of the past and their understanding, then man, we're just really robbing the story of its glorious beauty.
[00:57:50] Right, and so if you reduce fire into only being about judgment and punishment, again, you're missing a big piece here, but it's hard for us to bring things that seem like opposites together under one umbrella. The idea of judgment and punishment and the idea of mercy and forgiveness seem like opposites, and yet they're brought together under one concept in the hebraic mind.
[00:58:21] Likewise, the idea of holiness and purity also are combined into one picture, and if you miss out on one, you missing out on the complete idea.
[00:58:32] I'll go ahead and wrap it up for now, but I invite you guys to do your own exploration into these kinds of themes. Go and do a word study on fire or flame or burning or something like that. See what kind of passages pop up. That is one of the benefits of starting with a word study, is that it gives you a whole list of passages to start with. They're not gonna be complete in giving you the whole picture though, because just like we do not have the word of fire or burning or anything like that in Genesis four, and yet that story does fit into the pattern.
[00:59:13] So that's why I say a word study is not going to give you everything, but it's a great place to start. So you guys go start tracking down your themes that are interesting to you and that are popping out to you as applicable to your own studies.
[00:59:30] A reminder as well, that on my website at genesis marks the spot.com, under the resources tab, you'll find the first link there is a blog post that will have links to my Frame Semantics study guide.
[00:59:48] It's still just the first version of that, and I'm developing other material alongside it. But go check that out because I think it might be interesting and helpful to you. I also invite you over to my biblical theology community at On This Rock. I will leave the link in my show notes. If you're not a member there, come and join us. We're having a lot of good discussion about a lot of really interesting topics.
[01:00:17] I'm also starting up a study on the book Lamb of the Free. I've soft launched that in my paid community, but I'm going to hard launch it come January. We're gonna be doing Zoom meetings for anybody who can join those, and we'll be really deep diving into Andrew Rillera's book, Lamb of the Free, which has gotten a lot of traction. A lot of interest. We're gonna be looking at the book and looking at reviews of the book and looking at other books that will align well with that study as well. So it's going to be a very deep dive into that book.
[01:00:58] And of course that book has a lot to do with purity and purification. So if you're listening to these episodes, you are gonna be primed for that study. So come on over into the community, check things out. If you want to be involved in that, you can come join the paid tier, which is only $5 a month. So along with that, I want to thank all of you who have subscribed there, and I thank you to all of my Patreon and PayPal supporters as well. You guys absolutely rock and I really deeply appreciate you. But I will wrap it up for this week and I wish you all a blessed week and we will see you later.
