Judges: Surprisingly Encouraging
July 22, 2011
It was a relief to finish working through Judges last week. Preaching to a congregation which needs encouragement, I could think of more obvious books to choose than this one, especially when one considers the last four chapters. There one sees the corruption of family, of the priesthood, of a tribe and finally of the whole nation. In the process, one woman is raped and murdered, a tribe is all but wiped out, and then a further six hundred women are raped - the last two hundred of them more than likely with their own fathers' connivance -- a true `Romans 1' moment for the people of God. Grim reading.
In reflecting on Judges, however, one thing stood out to me as I brought the series to a close: the importance of the immutability, the unchanging nature, of God.
Judges is not a book which describes what happens in the world when `they' elect the wrong person, or pass the wrong law or tolerate the latest outrageous behaviour. It is instead a story of how the excesses of the world so quickly take root within the people of God, how Sodom moves from being 'out there' to being 'in here.' If God were anything like us, he would cast Israel off and start afresh; but he is not like us. Throughout it all, God remains true to his promise that Israel would be his people. Israel plays the whore time and again, and she steadily gets worse and worse; but God remains immutably faithful to his covenant. Surely the immutability of God in this instance is no abstract philosophical construct which makes him seem distant and impersonal; it is the foundation of his grace and the reason why we can joyfully trust him.
Most amazing of all is the way God's immutable commitment to his promise subverts human evil and forces it to work for his own plan. Gn. 22:18 speaks of God's plan that the Jews will be a source of blessing to all nations, an accent that is found throughout the Old Testament (e.g., Is. 49:6). Then, when we get to the New, we meet Simeon. How many days must that old man have shuffled into the Temple only to find that this day was much the same as the last? Then one day - one glorious day - he sees a young couple with a baby and realizes that this is it, the moment he has long been waiting for: the promised time has come, he is in the very presence of the One. And what does he call the child? `A light for the Gentiles,' Lk. 2:32. Then we see this same explosion of grace in Mk. 15:37-39, where the narrative has Christ die, then cuts to the Temple curtain being torn in two, before immediately returning to the cross where the Gentile centurion declares `Truly this man was the Son of God!' Christ dies; the covenant God bursts out of the confines of the Temple; a Gentile acknowledges the Son of God. Gn. 22 is being fulfilled before our very eyes.
That's lovely, you say, but what has all this to do with the last chapters of Judges? Simply this: Rom. 11:1, `I ask then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.'
Benjamin, through its own and the rest of Israel's sin, came close to total destruction in Judges 20 and 21, reduced to a mere 600 men hiding at the rock of Rimmon. Then, through Israel's sinful plan to get out from under ill-judged vows, they do not seek the Lord but cook up a scheme to obtain 600 wives by force. Thus, the tribe of Benjamin is preserved. Deeply horrible stuff. But God brought good out of evil: the Apostle to the Gentiles ultimately owed his birth to the events of those days. No survival for Benjamin at the rock of Rimmon, no conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus and no mission to the Gentiles. And most of you reading this ultimately owe your soul, humanly speaking, to that mission.
The great lesson of Judges? God will fulfill his promise to build the church despite the church, despite her sin, despite her failings. That is surely the greatest encouragement of all.
In reflecting on Judges, however, one thing stood out to me as I brought the series to a close: the importance of the immutability, the unchanging nature, of God.
Judges is not a book which describes what happens in the world when `they' elect the wrong person, or pass the wrong law or tolerate the latest outrageous behaviour. It is instead a story of how the excesses of the world so quickly take root within the people of God, how Sodom moves from being 'out there' to being 'in here.' If God were anything like us, he would cast Israel off and start afresh; but he is not like us. Throughout it all, God remains true to his promise that Israel would be his people. Israel plays the whore time and again, and she steadily gets worse and worse; but God remains immutably faithful to his covenant. Surely the immutability of God in this instance is no abstract philosophical construct which makes him seem distant and impersonal; it is the foundation of his grace and the reason why we can joyfully trust him.
Most amazing of all is the way God's immutable commitment to his promise subverts human evil and forces it to work for his own plan. Gn. 22:18 speaks of God's plan that the Jews will be a source of blessing to all nations, an accent that is found throughout the Old Testament (e.g., Is. 49:6). Then, when we get to the New, we meet Simeon. How many days must that old man have shuffled into the Temple only to find that this day was much the same as the last? Then one day - one glorious day - he sees a young couple with a baby and realizes that this is it, the moment he has long been waiting for: the promised time has come, he is in the very presence of the One. And what does he call the child? `A light for the Gentiles,' Lk. 2:32. Then we see this same explosion of grace in Mk. 15:37-39, where the narrative has Christ die, then cuts to the Temple curtain being torn in two, before immediately returning to the cross where the Gentile centurion declares `Truly this man was the Son of God!' Christ dies; the covenant God bursts out of the confines of the Temple; a Gentile acknowledges the Son of God. Gn. 22 is being fulfilled before our very eyes.
That's lovely, you say, but what has all this to do with the last chapters of Judges? Simply this: Rom. 11:1, `I ask then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.'
Benjamin, through its own and the rest of Israel's sin, came close to total destruction in Judges 20 and 21, reduced to a mere 600 men hiding at the rock of Rimmon. Then, through Israel's sinful plan to get out from under ill-judged vows, they do not seek the Lord but cook up a scheme to obtain 600 wives by force. Thus, the tribe of Benjamin is preserved. Deeply horrible stuff. But God brought good out of evil: the Apostle to the Gentiles ultimately owed his birth to the events of those days. No survival for Benjamin at the rock of Rimmon, no conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus and no mission to the Gentiles. And most of you reading this ultimately owe your soul, humanly speaking, to that mission.
The great lesson of Judges? God will fulfill his promise to build the church despite the church, despite her sin, despite her failings. That is surely the greatest encouragement of all.
