The first time Moses comes down from the mountain he finds a party going on, breaks the message from God written in stone that is intended for the people and kills 3000 of the family. The second time Moses comes down from Mt. Sinai he brings down a redacted version of that first message from God and this one is called the Ten Commandments. So began the religion of Judaism.
All Old Testament theologies seem to lump these two voices together and then try to make sense of the resulting confused understanding of God. Is God a God of love and forgiveness or a cosmic judge and killer? Today’s New International Study Bible has the following note on Exodus 19:5, the third time Moses comes down from Mount Sinai.
“The covenant between God and Israel at Mount Sinai is the outgrowth and extension of the Lord’s covenant with Abraham 600 years earlier. Participation in the divine blessing is conditioned on obedience added to faith (p.117).”
For all intent and purposes the obedience added to faith that is mentioned is the obedience to religion. Religion takes the place of God in the affairs of men and men use God as an excuse to kill. All Old Testament theologies that place obedience to a human religion on equal or greater footing than with the Voice of God are corrupt and leave the people confused and dazed.
These two voices need to be contrasted. The first historical Voice of God comes to Abram, a grossly insignificant tribal person living a very insignificant life. Then the Voice of God to Abram speaks an impossible promise to an impossible Abram in Genesis chapter 12: 1-3. The voice says:
“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you.
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you
I will curse, and all the peoples of the earth will be blessed
through you”.
The only condition given to Abram is to go, put one foot in front of another believing in the reality of the only true “I .. God”, who will do whatever it take to accomplish the divine purpose and promise to Abram. The promise to Abram is not religion, there are no maps, no guides and most of all, no killing, just the invitation to follow the “I .. God”. There is no other long list of ethical norms, no required character, no required belief in a dictated dogma and no allegiance to an earthly demigod.
The life of Abram is a mixed bag, one moment he listens to the voice of religion, his own humanness, and the next moment the Voice of God. Abram is full of doubt, he cowardly passes his wife Sarai off as his sister to the Pharaoh of Egypt. The royal family catches a disease, probably the crabs from Sarai and Pharaoh angrily threw them out of the country . Back in the promised land, Abram takes in a concubine women to give him the future that the “I .. God” had not yet fulfilled through Sarai.
In the midst of these character flaws God again blesses Abram, giving him the new name of Abraham, meaning the father of many nations. The name Sarai is changed to Sarah. A future for the family is again promised and sealed by making circumcision the outward sign of God’s blessing. The “I .. God”, then renews his promise of a son, Isaac, to be born to the aged Sarah and Abraham. Not fully convinced of the promise, Abraham and Sarah poke fun at the promise of God.
The “I .. God”, true to his word, brings Isaac into this world, the son of Sarah and Abraham. The years pass and Isaac is now at least a teenager and the beloved son of his father who believes Isaac to be the promise of God. The Voice again is heard by Abraham. Religion would never give such a confusing message, the “I .. God” tells Abraham to go to the region of Moriah, to a mountain he will be shown. There Abraham is to climb the mountain and sacrifice his son, his only son, Isaac, the God given son of promise, the son through whom the promise to Abram is being fulfilled. It is extraordinary that the unpredictable Abraham does not hesitate. You and I would have objected to this confusing instruction, is this not shear lunacy? The “I .. God” could have responded with the question, in whom do you trust, biology or me, the “I ..God”? You tried biology once Abraham, do it my way now. At the last moment the “I .. God” provides another sacrificial option to save the life and promise of Isaac.
This is not religious obedience, Abraham gives us an example of what it means to live by the Voice of God. Religion objects on cue, it can’t be that simple, if God doesn’t bless religion, who will be in control? Control just may be what is confusing the issue, divine freedom can not be humanly controlled nor is it predictable.
Let us contrast the message that Moses brings down from Mount Sinai the third time. This message is recorded in Exodus chapter nineteen and unlike the message to Abram, this message is a very conditional promise.
“Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites. (Exodus 19 : 5&6)”
The question should be asked, would the "I .. God" even bother with such an arrangement rooted in this world? The TNIV Study Bible says in the notes for 19:3 -- 24:18. “The Sinaitic covenant is cast in the form of an ancient Near Eastern suzerainty-vassal treaties of the second millennium B.C. It contained the divine pledge to be the Israelites Suzerain Protector, if they would be faithful to him as their covenant Lord and obedient to the stipulations of the covenant as the vassal-people of the kingdom (p.117).”
The covenant from God is now bound up in the little word “if”, it is an “if covenant”. This conditional agreement between God and man is the very definition of religion. To the little word “if”, add the little word “fully” and all of humanity has no hope of pleasing or being in the good graces of the “I .. God”. Moses became a political religious tyrant who tried to kill the Voice of God and largely succeeded. No human being can be “fully” compliant with any religion and this supposed agreement leaves all of us without hope and under the thumb of religion..
This being the reality of our human predicament, what are we to do, to whom are we to go? The confines of religion is one life answer to which the vast majority of humankind gravitate. Religion as an ideology, masquerading as spirituality is responsible for all manner of ugliness perpetrated on humankind in the name of God. We quickly point to Islamic terrorism but the same can be said of the Christian Church in the midst of slavery, or the silence of the church as the Nazi ideology is roasting Jews in the ovens. Some gravitate to a secular political ideology that rules out the very possibility of the Voice of God. All of these and others are a brand of humanism, settling for our self involved animalism.
We can choose as Abram did, to listen for the Voice of God or we can be a Moses and choose deafness.
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
