God's Experience
"Let Us create Mankind in Our own image"
"I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."
God's experience is wrapped up in that of His creation, particularly in that of his people. What I am wrestling with is at what point does God's experience become wrapped up in our experience? As I ask this question there are two passages that ring in my ears.
When God created the heavens and the Earth He created Mankind, male and female, in His own image. From that point on the face of God forever imprinted itself on the face of people, forever from that point the face of God is in Mankind's face. But was His experience truly tied into ours? If it was, can we make real sense of the flood?
After the flood God made a covenant with Noah and thus with Mankind, those people in whose faces is the face of God. In establishing a covenant, God is uniquely wrapping his experience into his people's experience. Now there will never be another flood again for Man's suffering becomes the suffering of God. After babel this covenant manifests itself in relationship with Israel (Genesis 12). The next time God decides it would be better for him to kill his people Moses talks him out of it by basically saying, "it wouldn't make sense for you to do that" (32:9-14) Perhaps the greatest expression of this covenant comes generations later in Jesus Christ. On the cross God, in Jesus, suffers sin and suffers in solidarity with his people. In Jesus the covenant is extended back to "all the nations" as it was intended from the beginning. Now the suffering of anyone, not just Israel as a whole, is the suffering of God.
"I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."
God's experience is wrapped up in that of His creation, particularly in that of his people. What I am wrestling with is at what point does God's experience become wrapped up in our experience? As I ask this question there are two passages that ring in my ears.
When God created the heavens and the Earth He created Mankind, male and female, in His own image. From that point on the face of God forever imprinted itself on the face of people, forever from that point the face of God is in Mankind's face. But was His experience truly tied into ours? If it was, can we make real sense of the flood?
After the flood God made a covenant with Noah and thus with Mankind, those people in whose faces is the face of God. In establishing a covenant, God is uniquely wrapping his experience into his people's experience. Now there will never be another flood again for Man's suffering becomes the suffering of God. After babel this covenant manifests itself in relationship with Israel (Genesis 12). The next time God decides it would be better for him to kill his people Moses talks him out of it by basically saying, "it wouldn't make sense for you to do that" (32:9-14) Perhaps the greatest expression of this covenant comes generations later in Jesus Christ. On the cross God, in Jesus, suffers sin and suffers in solidarity with his people. In Jesus the covenant is extended back to "all the nations" as it was intended from the beginning. Now the suffering of anyone, not just Israel as a whole, is the suffering of God.
Comments