Bearing God's Name
Page 1
FOREWORD BY CHRISTOPHER J. H. WRIGHT
For my parents,
Dan and Verna Camfferman,
and for Danny,
my partner for life,
and for our children,
Eliana, Emma, and Easton,
who have known for a long time
what it means to bear God’s name.
Contents
Foreword by Christopher J. H. Wright
Introduction
PART 1: BECOMING THE PEOPLE WHO BEAR GOD'S NAME
1 Leaving Egypt: Deliverance as Grace
2 Surprised at Sinai: Law as Gift
3 Major Deal: Covenant as Vocation
4 Now What?: Appointed for Service
5 Ready to Roll: Prepared for the Promised Land
Intermission
PART 2: LIVING AS THE PEOPLE WHO BEAR GOD'S NAME
6 Striking Out: From Mount Sinai to Mount Zion
7 What Yahweh Sees: The Faithful Few
8 Just Give Me Jesus: The Gospel Witness
9 Blob Tag: The Mission of Jesus
10 Who Let You In?: Gentiles and the Mission of God
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Resources from The Bible Project
Discussion Questions
Notes
Sidebar Notes
Bibliography
Image Credits
Scripture Index
Praise for Bearing God's Name
About the Author
More Titles from InterVarsity Press
FOREWORD
Christopher J. H. Wright
“And you call yourself a Christian!” That was about the worst thing we feared hearing as young Christians in my Northern Ireland childhood. If you were caught cheating on a test, or saying a bad word in your anger, or getting into a fight on the playground, or telling a dirty joke, or just showing off in front of the girls . . . whatever it was, the most stinging rebuke from other kids (or worst of all from a teacher) would be, “And you call yourself a Christian!” From another kid, that would mean, “See! You’re no better than the rest of us. Holier-than-thou. Hypocrite!” From a teacher it was more sobering: “That’s not the sort of behavior we expect from you of all people, Christopher.” Either way it was a pretty excruciating humiliation. There you were with your little Christian lapel badge for the Scripture Union or whatever, advertising that you were a Christian. But you’d let the team down again, let Jesus down again.
In our late teenage years the terminology changed a bit, but the inference was the same. There were many things that a “real Christian” simply didn’t do, places you didn’t go, music you shouldn’t listen to, clothes you shouldn’t wear, and so on, because if anybody saw or heard you, it would spoil your testimony. How could you bear witness to being a follower of Jesus, if you were just as “worldly” as all the other young folks?
Now of course I recognize that an unwholesome dose of legalism lurked in that kind of Christian culture, and sadly there were those who so reacted against it that they rejected the very faith it was trying to protect. But there was a genuine biblical truth underneath those assumptions and restrictions, namely this: how those who claim to be the people of God behave is an essential and inseparable component in the credibility (or otherwise) of what they say they believe about the God whose name they bear. If you call yourself a Christian, you’d better behave like one (or at least bear some resemblance to how people think Christians should behave). “Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Timothy 2:19 KJV, emphasis mine), was a memory verse impressed on us and rightly so.
Learning the Ten Commandments by heart, word-perfect from the KJV, was also part of my upbringing. So we chorused, “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” And of course, we knew what taking God’s name in vain meant. It was using the name of God, or Jesus, or Christ as a swear word or in any kind of exclamation. So we just didn’t! And we tutted and frowned very disapprovingly at anybody who did.
Well, again, I don’t regret or reject those childhood admonitions to watch our language. But having now read this book by Carmen Joy Imes, I do wonder what difference it would have made if those renowned KJV translators had been more literal and rendered the verb in its natural meaning: “You shall not bear the name of the LORD thy God in vain.” It might, of course, have simply increased the agony of those “And you call yourself a Christian” moments. But if Imes is right, it would have been much closer to the strong ethical thrust of the commandment than merely verbal abuse or misuse of God’s name (not that that is a trivial matter by any means).
And I have to say that I am convinced that Carmen Imes is right. Her case in this book (and argued in great exegetical detail in her published dissertation, Bearing YHWH’s Name at Sinai: A Reexamination of the Name Command of the Decalogue), is that “bearing the name of Yahweh” is comparable in meaning to the High Priest bearing the names of the tribes of Israel on his breastplate and bearing the name of Yahweh on his forehead. He represents—in both directions—those whose name he bears. Similarly, those who bore the name of Yahweh, like those who bear the name of Christ, represented that name before the watching world. Israel was called to live in the midst of the nations as the people who bore the name of Yahweh and made Yahweh “visible” in the world by walking in his ways and reflecting his character. To bear the name of the Lord was not merely an inestimable privilege and blessing but a challenging ethical and missional responsibility. This makes eminent sense to me. And its New Testament parallels are obvious.
A little more of my own story may explain why I resonate so enthusiastically with the message of this book. My parents were missionaries in Brazil before I was born, so I grew up with a houseful of missionary artifacts and a headful of missionary stories. (“And you a missionary’s son!” was an even more stinging rebuke for the mildest bad behavior, since it felt like bringing disgrace on my own father, let alone the Lord Jesus.)
I studied theology in Cambridge University. But in my undergraduate years there seemed no connection between theology and my missionary interests. I then went on to do doctoral research in the field of Old Testament ethics. That was a rich field of exploration in which I became ever more convinced that much of the weakness of the modern church is owing to its neglect of the profound ethical message and principles that God has woven so pervasively into the life and scriptures of Israel—and that filter through into so much of the ethical teaching of Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament. But again, this did not particularly connect with mission in my thinking.
Then I went to teach the Old Testament in India for five years in the 1980s. I remember vividly the moment I encountered the remarkable divine soliloquy that is Genesis 18:18-19.
Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him. (emphasis mine)
There, in the three clauses of that single sentence of verse 19, with its two explicit indications of purpose (“so that”), we have God’s election (“I have chosen him”), and God’s mission (the fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham that all nations on earth will be blessed through him), and right in the middle connecting both of those, we have God’s ethical demand (that Abraham’s community should walk in the way of the Lord—not of Sodom and Gomorrah—by doing righteousness and justice).
That verse united in my mind (and heart) the two great loves of my life in my biblical thinking and tea
ching: mission and ethics. They became like two sides of the same coin. God’s mission for Israel was simply that they should live as the people of Yahweh in the midst of the nations, bearing his name in their worship, prayer, and daily lives. And for that purpose, they must walk in the way of the Lord. And that was why God had chosen them in the first place, in Abraham, so that through them he could ultimately bring redemptive blessing to all nations. This single verse breathed missional election and missional ethics—and I was doing missional hermeneutics, though none of those terms seem to have been invented back then.
And that is what Carmen Joy Imes is doing in this book (though fortunately she does not use that kind of language!). She is helping us to relish once again the wondrous depths of truth and challenge that are there for us Christians in that great epic narrative of Old Testament Israel—whether those stories are familiar to us already or not. She not only shows what a horrendous and misleading fallacy it is when church leaders either ignore the Old Testament, or even worse, assure us that we can easily do without it and still be good Christians. The very idea would have appalled Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, and John.
Carmen also indirectly exposes the folly of some of the dichotomies that still plague the Christian West, particularly in the evangelical community—dichotomies I strive to overcome in speaking and writing. There is for example that tediously long-lived debate about whether “real mission” is primarily a matter of the evangelistically proclaimed word or also includes social, economic, and cultural engagement in works of compassion, justice, creation care, and so on. Why push asunder what God has joined together? For bearing the name of the Lord (in proclamation) will surely be “in vain” if it does not proceed from those who bear the name of the Lord also in lives and works that demonstrate his character. And then one hears of Christian pastors who never preach from the Old Testament or about any moral issues or even the ethical demands of Jesus and the apostles, for fear of undermining “the gospel” of justification by grace and faith alone. What do they think Paul means by “the obedience of faith” or “obeying the gospel” or being saved as “God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10), or “so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good” (Titus 3:8)? The dichotomizing of so-called gospel and ethics is damagingly unbiblical and might be said to constitute in itself a form of bearing the name of the Lord in vain.
So you call yourself a Christian? I trust that reading this book will give you a deeper and more biblical understanding of what it ought to mean to bear that name, and not to bear it in vain.
INTRODUCTION
AN INVITATION
In the opening to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C. S. Lewis crafts an arresting scene: Edmund and Lucy Pevensie are upstairs in their cousin Eustace’s home, lamenting that they are stuck with him for their summer holidays rather than somewhere far more interesting, such as Narnia. Their grief is sharpened by a painting on the wall—a ship at sea that seems remarkably like a Narnian vessel. Eustace overhears the siblings talking and begins to mock them for their childish imagination. He thinks the painting is downright rotten.
As they stare at it, the children fall silent. Something peculiar happens. They can almost see the undulating waves, almost feel the wind blowing, almost hear the sound of the ship slicing through the waters, and almost smell the air of the sea. Suddenly, they are splashed with sea spray and water pours through the frame into the bedroom. In a matter of moments, there is no bedroom at all, and the children are gasping for air in a tumultuous Narnian sea.
Perhaps without meaning to, Lewis demonstrates the nature of Scripture. At first glance, the Bible is only a book, telling us of lands and peoples long ago and far away. But like the Narnian painting, as we look more closely, it comes to life and sweeps us into its story.
You’re holding in your hands a book about Sinai, the mountain where the ancient Israelites met their God, Yahweh. It revisits their story as they trudge through the wilderness from a grueling past to a promising future. Chances are slim that you’ve ever been to Sinai in person, and slimmer that you are there as you read this. The people in this story lived over 3,000 years ago, spoke a different language, and lived by a radically different rhythm, with different values, customs, and concerns. However, these differences cannot erase the fundamental connection between their ancient story and your own. My prayer is that as you read you will experience what the Pevensie children experienced on that hot summer day in England—that you’ll be drawn into the biblical story and find that it is very much alive and that you’re a part of it—that it’s your story.
A WORD TO THE SKEPTIC
You may already be skeptical about the value of time travel to Sinai. You may be reading this book only because someone shoved it in your hand and said, “You need to read this.” If so, I understand your hesitation.
The Old Testament has been given a bad rap for lots of reasons. Too violent. Too confusing. Too remote. Too legalistic. Too outdated. Oh, there are a few inspiring stories tucked in between the head-scratchers. These we like to pull out and hold up to the light briefly before high-tailing it back to the New Testament. But the rest? We might not be willing to say it out loud, but large portions of the Old Testament are not just boring, they’re downright embarrassing. It would be easier to defend our faith if most of the Old Testament would just disappear.
An example of this ambivalence comes from Atlanta megachurch pastor Andy Stanley. He enjoys wide popularity, and for good reason. He has a special gift for communicating spiritual truths in a way that attracts the unchurched. He gets people in the door, and he holds their attention. He recognizes that the Old Testament is a significant barrier for many who might otherwise want to follow Jesus. His solution to this problem is to set it aside. The word he used was “unhitch.” In a sermon on Acts 15, Stanley said, “[Early] church leaders unhitched the church from the worldview, value systems, and regulations of the Jewish Scriptures . . . and my friends, we must as well.” He claimed, “The Old Testament was not the go-to source regarding any behavior for the church.” In the same sermon he went so far as to say, “When you read the Old Testament, when you read the old covenant, when you read the story of Israel . . . you don’t see much [grace].”1
The book of Exodus overflows with grace.
But as I read it, the book of Exodus overflows with grace. It turns out that Stanley realizes this too. In an interview with Dr. Michael Brown a few months after Stanley’s controversial sermon, he explained that what he wants his listeners to “unhitch” from is not the Old Testament properly understood, but the Old Testament as people have come to imagine it.2 In other words, he’d like people to leave aside the Old Testament temporarily, just long enough to be captivated by the resurrected Lord. Once they’ve encountered Jesus, they’ll rediscover the value of the Scriptures Jesus loved.
With this book, I’m taking a different approach. I believe that we need the Old Testament as Christians, not later, but now. Rather than unhitching, I want to make the case that we should re-hitch to Israel’s Scriptures so that we can truly understand who Jesus is and what he came to do. Without some guidance, we might easily conclude that the Old Testament is a terrible burden to pull and wish to walk away from it. We need an experienced guide who can help us see the enduring value of the Old Testament for the life of faith. I’ve had many such guides who have helped bring the Old Testament to life, and this book is my means of passing along to you their most important insights along with my own. I hope it will change your mind about the relevance of the Old Testament for Christians.
We especially need help with Old Testament law. Most of us do not perk up when we hear the word “law.” Boring, irrelevant, primitive, harsh, patriarchal, ethnocentric, cruel—all these charges are leveled against it. Laws are dry and tedious, and they take away freedoms we’d rather have. Laws keep us from parking in the most convenient places
and require us to take off our shoes at airport security checkpoints. Laws cramp our style—do not climb this or sit here or talk loud there. Silence your cell phone and no flash photography and don’t chew gum and don’t bring in outside food or drink and keep your hands and arms inside the car.
This is why Moses’ response to the law catches us off guard. Here he is, with tens of thousands of former slaves, exhausted after trekking through the wilderness with everything they own. They’ve been hungry, thirsty, and attacked along the way. They set up camp at the base of Mount Sinai, where the Lord first spoke to Moses in the flaming bush and promised to deliver his people from Egypt. Moses climbs up the mountain to talk with God again, now that he’s carried out God’s instructions to lead the people out of Egypt. The people have arrived. And God gives them rules?
I would expect Moses to push back a bit. Um . . . Lord? Isn’t this the part where you bless us? Or at least give us a break? These folks have had a long journey and, frankly, a hard life. What they need is a rest. Couldn’t you cut them some slack? Do you really think it’s fair to saddle them with a bunch of rules when they’ve only just tasted freedom? Couldn’t this wait until later?
But the way Moses sees it, other nations will actually be jealous of the law Israel gets at Sinai:
See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today? (Deuteronomy 4:5-8, emphasis added)