Telling God's Story - Chapter 7: Redemption: Abraham and Moses

In the previous chapter we looked at Act 1 (Creation and Fall) of the five acts of the Bible story. Chapter 7 is about Act 2 - Redemption: Abraham and Moses.

Abraham and Moses are the two primary figures in the Old Testament who God uses to set in place His redemptive purposes. Because the Bible is not a legal document intended to answer every detail, there are a lot of unanswered questions about it. This is ok since the larger purposes of the Bible don't require that we know all the details.

Redemption, Stage One: Abraham
There are two main issues to underscore about Abraham's role in God's story:

• God will make a great and blessed nation through Abraham (who came from pagan origin).
• God's intention for creating this nation was that through them, all the peoples of the earth will be blessed.

"...Abraham's tale is not an isolated story, (not) the description of a great man we should emulate. Rather, Abraham stands at an initial stage in a grand story that reaches its climax, as does all of Scripture, in the death and resurrection of Christ - and...with all of us here today who are 'in Christ' who share in both is resurrection power and in his suffering (Philippians 3:10)...In a nutshell, this is the 'moral' lesson to be learned from Scripture. This is the vision of the Christian life Scripture teaches. We are part of God's plan to restore creation."

An important point to note is that although Abraham is chosen to be father of a mighty blessed nation, there is one obstacle after another that arises to get in the way (read about all of the family problems) - nothing is going smoothly! "Why God insists on working through these bottom-feeders is not easy to explain, but it is a constant in the Bible. God's people are marked by moral failures, lack of faith, and rank rebellion...This reinforces my earlier point: the central point of these stories is not to give us moral guidance."

Redemption, Stage Two: Moses
In the story of Moses and the Exodus we see Israel begin her journey as an actual nation. This is an act of grace on God's part because His deliverance of Israel from captivity is not because they were good people but because He has an important role for them to play in His great story. The purpose of the Exodus was much greater than the freeing of slaves; there was a two-fold purpose:

• God delivered Israel as part of His promise to Abraham (Ex. 2:24,25). With His remembrance of His covenant with Abraham, God is moving forward with His project and taking it to a new level with Moses and the Exodus.
• This deliverance shows that Israel belongs exclusively to God. When God told Pharaoh through Moses to let His people go, He said, "Let my people go so that they may worship me." The central issue of the Exodus was about who Israel would serve/worship. "Pharaoh and Yahweh are rival competitors for Israel's allegiance."

After leaving Egypt, Israel first worships Yahweh at Mt. Sinai, meeting their God and Creator in the thunder and lightning and smoke. The law that God gave His people there was not for the purpose of earning His favor - they already had His favor as His own people; the Law was given as a pattern for holy behavior that would reflect the image of God to a fallen world. The tabernacle was given as a pattern for holy worship of Yahweh.

(Enns develops the idea and purpose of the tabernacle and why the golden calf incident threatened to undo everything; for the sake of brevity, I won't go into that...)

The author ends this chapter by saying, "The Exodus is a very important theological moment in the Old Testament...(it) proves that there is no god like him...The Exodus story has a trajectory. It is not a flat story to derive a 'lesson' from it. Rather, it is a crucial chapter in the grand story. This second stage of redemption is all about God forming a people for himself and training them to look like people who are his image-bearers..."

Chapter 8 moves on the the 3rd Act of the Bible story: "David and the Problem of Kingship".