In addition to the creation of a community
of reciprocity (see post "Womb," pt 3, November 2011), another vital aspect of Torrance’s view of the mediation of
revelation in Israel is an intensification of the hostility between humanity
and God inherent in what the Apostle Paul calls the “carnal mind” (cf. Rom 8:7). Entrusted with the oracles
of God, argues Torrance (1992:8), Israel underwent a painful process as the
Word of God penetrated into the “depths of Israel’s being and soul.” In the
“ever-deepening, spiral movement” of divine revelation, Israel was subjected to
“appalling suffering” and broken time and again on the wheel of divine
Providence in order to become “pliable” in the service of God’s
self-communication to humankind. As Torrance (1992:8) argues, as the “chosen
medium” of God’s self-revelation to humanity, Israel “had to suffer above all
from God,”
for
divine revelation was a fire in the mind and soul and memory of Israel burning
away all that was in conflict with God’s holiness, mercy and truth. By its very
nature that revelation could not be faithfully appropriated and articulated
apart from conflict with deeply ingrained habits of human thought and
understanding and without the development of new patterns of thought and
understanding and speech as worthy vehicles of its communication.
In agreement with Torrance (1992:7-9), this
is how we must view God’s long, historical dialogue with Israel as recorded in
the Old Testament. In Israel, the intense fire of divine revelation steadily
burned away false concepts of divinity ingrained in the fallen human mind,
facilitating the development of patterns of thought and speech worthy of God. During
its long and painful encounter with the living God, Israel became an “oddity”
among the nations of the earth, as the Word of God was at work, “preparing the
matrix for the mediation of divine revelation,” so that humanity could receive the
personal self-communication of God in the incarnate Son.
As
Torrance notes, Israel was not chosen to be the mediator of revelation because
of any special religious or moral qualities it possessed; rather, Israel was a
recalcitrant and rebellious nation, perhaps the most stiff-necked people under
the sun (cf. Ex 34:9). Yet, Israel was
brought into an intense and intimate relationship with God unprecedented among
the nations. As God drew near to Israel and Israel drew near to God, the innate
resistance of the human mind resulting from humanity’s alienation from God
intensified, so that, time and again, Israel’s rebellion appears to have been
in “inverse proportion” to the grace of God bestowed upon the people. All
through its history, notes Torrance, Israel fought against God: the prophets were
stoned, God’s messengers abused. As the holy, righteous, and loving character
of God was brought to bear upon Israel’s mind and thought in the moral and
liturgical institutions of the covenant, Israel vacillated back and forth
between committed worship of the true God and idolatrous worship of the local deities
of sex and nature. Nevertheless, argues Torrance, God’s love for the people remained
unchanged. God refused to be thwarted in his redemptive purpose for mankind,
and his very steadfastness of purpose was the reason Israel was broken time and
again by the hand of divine providence. As Jesus said, had God chosen any other
people, even those of Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented in dust and ashes
(Mt 11:21), yet, the Master Potter took the lumpiest, most retractable clay (cf. Jer 18:6) to mould on the wheel of
his unflinching redemptive purpose, so that even with the most difficult
material, he might show his grace and love for humanity (Torrance, 1992:10; 2008:41,
42).
The
moulding and shaping of Israel into the medium of divine revelation was
agonisingly painful, as the Word of God penetrated into the “depths of Israel’s
being and soul” (Torrance, 1992:8), “translating” itself “into the flesh of Israel”
and reforming the nation’s “life, thought and behaviour” (Torrance, 1996b:145).
Intense conflict between God and his chosen people was unavoidable, because the
struggle that arose from the adaptation of divine revelation to human thought
forms and linguistic concepts demanded the reshaping of “the inner structure of
the society” through which revelation would be mediated (cf. Torrance, 1971:147). As Israel encountered God in an
unprecedented and intimate way, notes Torrance, “the innate resistance of the
human soul and mind resulting from the alienation of man from God” inevitably
intensified. If divine revelation was to penetrate and break through the
inherent bias against it, the “soul and mind” of Israel had to be turned
“inside out,” so that the people became God-centred rather than self-centred. In
this regard, Torrance sees an ongoing “love-hate” relationship between Israel
and God. The more the Word of God penetrated the depths of Israel’s existence,
the more it seemed to burn like a fire, so that the prophets finally cried out
in agony. As Torrance argues, “To be the bearer of divine revelation is to
suffer, and not only to suffer but to be killed and made alive again, and not
only to be made alive but to be continually renewed and refashioned under its
creative impact.” Torrance sees parallels between the suffering and
revivification of Israel and the passion of Christ, calling Israel’s ongoing,
agonising process of dying, rising, and renewal “the pre-history of the
crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus in Israel” (Torrance, 1992:10, 11;
2008:50). As Scandrett (2006:46, 47) notes, the physical suffering of Israel
and the psychic suffering of the prophets anticipate the suffering of Jesus Christ.
In
regard to the “ever-deepening, spiral movement” (Torrance, 1992:8) of the
mediation of revelation in Israel, Scandrett (2006:43, 44) makes two salient
observations. He argues that the image of a “spiral” movement demonstrates
Torrance’s view of the “progressive” nature of the mediation of revelation in
Israel; that is, revelation is moving in a particular direction toward a
particular goal. The image appears to indicate that Torrance sees the movement
of revelation deepening and narrowing to a particular point in the history of
Israel: that is, the incarnation of Jesus Christ. In addition, argues
Scandrett, the image reveals Torrance’s regard for the importance of various
stages of Israel’s history vis-a-vis
the incarnation, indicating that Torrance regards the latter periods of
Israel’s history, particularly the period of the prophets, to contain more
densely focused thematic material relevant to the incarnation. As Scandrett
notes, for Torrance, this indicates that God had intended to communicate
himself to humanity from the beginning, and that Israel was chosen as the
vehicle by which God would achieve that goal in history. Thus, agreeing with
Scandrett, we argue that the “appalling suffering” of Israel was not because
God willed the suffering of his people, but their sinfulness and hostility
toward divine revelation threatened to disrupt God’s determined purpose that
Israel should fulfil its role as the mediator of the knowledge of God on behalf
of all humanity. As Scandrett (2006:45) notes, the people of Israel were trapped
in an “intensifying cycle of suffering,” caught between the “ever-deepening,
spiral movement” of God’s will to reveal himself and their own will to resist
that revelation. For Torrance, this “agonized relationship” is “neither
accidental nor incidental,” argues Scandrett (2006:50), but establishes the “basic
form” for understanding the reconciling work of God in human history.
The
history of God’s interaction with Israel teaches us that divine revelation
calls into question “naturalistic” patterns of human thought. If we are to know
God in the way he has chosen to reveal himself, argues Torrance, we must allow
the sword of truth that pierced Israel to pierce our own hearts, “so that its
secret contradiction of God may be laid bare.” We must “go to school with
Israel,” sharing its painful transformation of mind and soul, where it was
prepared for the final mediation of revelation in Jesus Christ, if we are to
break free from our assimilation of worldly thought patterns and be transformed
in the renewing of our minds in Christ (cf.
Rom 12:2) (Torrance, 1992:12). In arguing that divine revelation in historical
Israel calls into question “naturalistic” or pagan concepts of God, Torrance
remains faithful to his realist epistemology. Without specifically saying so,
in his discussion of the mediation of revelation in Israel, Torrance
consistently maintains his fundamental theological assertion that knowledge is
developed a posteriori; that is, epistemology
follows ontology. In Israel, Torrance sees knowledge of God (epistemology)
unfolding according to God’s self-revelation (being), graciously disclosed to
humanity within the conditions and limitations of human understanding.
References (see previous posts on this subject)
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