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Essay 76 (6-4-05)

THE BIBLE AS DIVINE DRAMA (1)

While the Bible may be viewed from various perspectives, I think it is especially informing to see it as an unfolding divine drama, something similar to a Shakespearean play. God is of course the Producer. The stage is planet earth, even though it is but a speck in the vast universe, which is also part of the drama. The players are multitudes of people, with special roles for kings, prophets, priests, apostles, and "chosen" people. Even Satan looms large in the script. The audience reaches to all the universe and to heaven itself – angels, principalities, dominions, powers, and all the heavenly hosts.

The drama does not unfold in a vacuum, but in the context of human history. God is at work among the nations, carving out a "special people" – a community of faith -- of his own, who take center stage in the drama. The theme gradually becomes apparent – God’s redemptive work in human history – which might serve as the play’s title. A pagan king like Cyrus the Persian has the role of "the Lord’s anointed," while another, Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian plays "the Lord’s battleax." The nations of the world – whether Egyptians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Romans, Greeks – are called onto stage to do the Producer’s bidding – sometimes to discipline the chosen nation, sometimes to protect it.

As the hosts of heaven watch the drama it is evident that the Producer is at work in human history. Nations rise and fall, but the "elect people" are always preserved.

If a program card were issued for the sake of the audience it might read like this:

Prologue: The Rise and Fall of the Human Race (Genesis 1-11)

Act 1: A Chosen Nation is Formed and Nurtured for the Redemption of Fallen Humanity (Rest of Old Testament).

Act 2: God’s Own Son, the Messiah, Comes As Redeemer (the Gospels)

Act 3: The Christian Community of Faith:: Its Ongoing Witness (the rest of the New Testament, except Revelation)

Epilogue: God’s Eternal Purpose Realized: Final Redemption for the Community of Faith (Revelation)

The Prologue reveals why the story of redemption is necessary. While Genesis 1-11 reveals the origin of the heavens and earth, man and woman, and of all things, its main theme is the entrance of sin into the world and its catastrophic consequences. It reveals the rise of man to a pristine existence in the garden of God, only to tell of his fall into sin and destruction when he yielded to Satan’s temptations.

Sin dogs the Prologue – intrigue, self-will, murder, pride, rebellion – thus revealing the willful nature of sin. It is so gross that "Yahweh saw that human wickedness was great on earth and that his heart contrived nothing but wicked schemes all day long (Gen. 6:5). God was grieved at heart, and regretted he ever made man. He resolved to send a flood and rid the earth of man and beast alike. He spared a few so as to make a fresh start.

The human race is up and going again, only to further sin by presuming to build a tower into heaven itself. This time God confuses their language and scatters them over the earth. The audience now sees what the drama makes clear, than man is a fallen creature, self-willed and bent on pride and rebellion against his Creator. He will never straighten things out on his own. The love and grace of God are his only hope. God will not now destroy him but save him. The stage is set for the beginning of the story of salvation.

But the Prologue leaves us with heroes, two in particular. Enoch "walked with God," and apparently did not have to die as other men, but was taken into heaven. Then there was Noah, who was "a good man and an upright man" and he too "walked with God." Amidst all the wickedness and darkness there were those close to the heart of God. It begins a theme that runs all through the drama – the remnant. No matter how bad it gets or how gross the sin and rebellion, there is always a remnant – and God uses these to save his wayward world.

Abram – soon to be Abraham – was such a one. And with him Act 1 begins in Genesis l2. He becomes the father of the faithful for all time to come -- not only the father of "the old Israel," the Hebrew people who would eventually give the Messiah to the world – but of "the new Israel" as well, the community of the Messiah. This is because Abraham was the essence of faith. He demonstrated what faith was by the choices he made. Even in Act 3 the apostles would look back to father Abraham in defining faith.

Act 1 covers something like 2000 years, which is a long time to us, but only a moment in God’s eternal plan. It is the story of a nation being made ready – "in the fullness of time" – for its ultimate purpose, to bring God’s own Son into the world, "born of woman, born under the law." There is lots of drama in their vicissitudes. They were enslaved in Egypt for four centuries so as to be educated by the most sophisticated nation at the time. For generations they are captives in Babylon so as to once and for all burn away the last vestige of idolatry, which had plagued them for centuries, in spite of all the efforts of the prophets to root it out.

Israel was harassed, pummeled, and persecuted by the nations around them – not unlike a football being passed and kicked about – Egypt to the south, the Chaldeans to the north. Both Syria and Assyria threatened them with extinction. Their capital city, Jerusalem, was sacked and destroyed again and again. But God always preserved them even while he was punishing them. In one dramatic moment God used a beautiful woman named Esther to save them from genocide. Most all the ancient nations passed out of history, but Israel survived. When it came time for Act 2 – when "the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings" – God’s chosen people were there to make it happen.

Act 2 is the heart of the story, the epicenter of the drama. All before points to it, all afterward points back to it. It all centers in the Cross of Christ. Jesus of Nazareth is the greatest event in human history, and he, too, was caught up in the vortex of the culture of his time. That his Cross should have a line inscribed in three languages – Latin, Greek, Hebrew – reflects the forces that bore upon him. The Romans had political power over him, and they authorized his execution.

The Greeks influenced many of the ideas and much of the thinking, especially in the larger world that concerned Jesus. The Jews were his religious leaders, and to challenge them was to challenge his own people and his own church.

The apostle Paul was aware of this insurmountable conflict when he wrote: "Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness." He goes on to summarize the faith of "the new Israel" – "But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1:22-24).

The drama of "the Light that has come into the world" unfolds in the four gospels, each in its own way. Rather than being biographical they are testimonials of what the new community believed about Jesus. He was their teacher rabbi and friend, but he was more than that. They at last saw him as Lord, rather than Caesar, and as the Messiah who was to come, and even as Son of God . All four gospels bear witness to his being the risen Lord.

Act 2 closes with the risen Lord calling for the creation of an initiated, believing community. The apostles, his chosen envoys, were to go among all nations – into all the world – and proclaim the good news (of a risen Savior), and to initiate by baptism into the new community those who believed.

This set the stage for Act 3, which extends the drama to the primitive church.

                                                  (To be concluded)

Personal Notes

Ouida and I were richly blessed by our visit to the Skillman Church of Christ in Dallas on June 1. I gave them a brief overview of the history of Churches of Christ – who we were and who we ought to be – and they appreciated it. It was in preparation for the Stone-Campbell Dialogue which takes place at their church next week, which is a closed meeting of leaders from Disciples of Christ, Christian Churches, and Churches of Christ. But there is an open meeting this Sunday, 5-7 p.m., which I will be attending.

Something special happened at Skillman that Wednesday night. I was introduced by a woman! I don’t recall that ever happening before. Charme Robarts serves on staff with her husband Dwight, who is senior minister. They are both dear friends – and Charme introduced me. I have now lived long enough to witness still another miracle – to be introduced by a woman in a Church of Christ!

Some of the oldsters there – who knew something of my half-century ministry in the Dallas area – remembered the time when I was so controversial that I would not have been welcomed to a single mainline Church of Christ in Dallas, including Skillman. None of us made a big deal of it; we just recalled how things have changed, hopefully for the better.

I must tell you of another unusual thing. Russ Hicks of Sodus, Michigan wrote to tell me that when he was having a problem "connecting the dots" on who we were in Churches of Christ, Cecil Hook suggested he read my The Stone-Campbell Movement. Once he began to read, he says, he stayed up all night reading it the first time. He has since read it eight times! And he has given copies to others who do not have the dots connected.

Now tell me, can you imagine anyone reading a history book – any history book – eight times? Do I now have a pitch! If this studious brother, searching for his roots, would read a book eight times, there are some of you who might find it in your hearts to read it once. $35 plus $2.26 postage is a modest price these days for a 600-page book, the revised edition. Make the check to me and send to 1300 Woodlake Dr., Denton, TX 76210.

We also have copies of the massive The Stone-Campbell Encyclopedia, which is a publication breakthrough for our heritage, published as it is by an international publisher. $53.10 including postage, a bargain considering its quality.

Ouida and I consider "I could hardly put it down" as the ultimate compliment for my A Lover’s Quarrel: My Pilgrimage of Freedom in Churches of Christ, and we delight in hearing it often. If you read it you’ll find that it is more than about me. It is about a church and many of its leaders caught in a vortex of change. $14.95 postpaid.

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