04.17 - The Moral Character of God Seen in His Covenant Relation to Israel
(17) The Moral CJiaractcr of God seen in His Covenant Relation to Israel
While the Latter Prophets gave prominence to the moral and ethical character of God, we are not entitled to conclude that the date of this conception of Jehovah is thereby assigned to this period. The covenant which God made with Abraham, which secured to his heir and seed the possession of Canaan, was a promise, and was confirmed in a remarkable manner, and partook of the nature of an oath. 4 So the covenant with David constituting his seed the perpetual rulers of the Kingdom of God is spoken of as “ ordered in all
2 Micah 7:18 3 Hosea 2:16-23.
4 Genesis 22:17, Genesis 26:3, Genesis 15:7-18.
Things, “sure,” even “ the sure mercies of David, and was constituted with due and solemn rites. This covenant is spoken of as “eternal,” and is made by Isaiah the foundation of Messianic prophecy. 1 So with the covenant which secures the perpetual priest hood in the family of Levi. Into all these covenants together with the promises, institutions, and facts connected with them there enter certain moral elements, duties, and obligations which imply Jehovah was a moral and righteous Being Who entered into moral relations with His chosen people, which has for its basis the principle of righteousness. This covenant relation of Jehovah and Israel is recognised as already existing by the Latter Prophets.
Jehovah is the God of Israel, Israel is His people, this relation they trace to the time of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt; that was the day of Israel’s birth, the time when Jehovah knew her. 2 This relation, how ever, does not imply immunity from chastisement and suffering, nor is it to be regarded as indissoluble.
Jehovah assures this people by His servant Hosea that because of Israel’s idolatry, unfaithfulness, and profligacy, Jehovah shall say of her, u She is not My people, neither am I hers. 3 But upon her return to obedience, fidelity, righteousness, and goodness, Jehovah promises to renew His relationship with her, saying: “ I will say unto them which were not my people, Thou art My people; and they shall say Thou art my God.” 4 This is the teaching of all the Latter Prophets, and while the Exile may be the rupture of the Old
2 Amos 3:2; Hosea 2:3, Hosea 11:1; Hosea 12:9.
3 Hosea 1:9, Hosea 2:2 4 Hosea 1:10, Hosea 2:23. covenant, the Restoration marks the establishment of the New. But into and around this new covenant, or the renewal of the covenant relation of Jehovah with Israel, there gather all the ideals and aspirations of the teaching Prophets, viz, the forgiveness of sins, the assurance of righteousness and peace, the possession of everlasting joy and blessedness, and all that pertain to the Messianic expectation and hope. The covenant also takes on certain new aspects, which are not only new but better, because connected with the richer and fuller revelations of Jehovah’s name and character, especially of His righteousness, grace, and truth; that “Jehovah remembers His covenant and His grace to do it for His name’s sake,” that He may “show His faithfulness and perform His truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which He had sworn unto their fathers from the days of old.” 1 It is new and better because of its intense subjective reality and the realisation of its deeper and more spiritual significance of forgiving and renewing grace and truth. “ I will write it on their hearts.” “ A new heart also will I give, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh; and I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall ke p my judgments and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God “ 2 In this “ new and better covenant,” with its subjective reality, its deeper spiritual significance, we have a higher and fuller revelation of God of His immutable and unchanging character, of His abiding
1 Micah 7:20.
2 Ezekiel 36:25-28. mercy and grace, and the universality of His dominion and rule, as set forth by Deutero-Isaiah, and more fully by Jeremiah and Ezekiel. With this higher conception of the moral character of God, the spiritual nature of His reign, and the growth of Divine holiness, we have a truer view of the moral character of sin and the necessity for some Divine and efficient method of forgiveness and salvation. The moral and polluting effect of evil and sin comes out in the conversion and call of Isaiah “ Woe is me, for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips.” 1 We have here both the sense of personal sin, and of the relation of evil to the race, as also of its moral defilement and pollution. The general teaching of the Old Testament respecting sin is that of defilement, according to the teaching of the second commandment. It was a defilement that reached to others besides the actual sinner; the sins of the fathers reaching unto the children; of the head of the family, the tribe, and the nation reaching to all that belonged to them, or were associated with them: by this the sense of moral guilt was lessened, and personal responsibility, as also of individual and personal forgiveness and salvation. But in the teachings of the Latter Prophets notably those of Ezekiel we have a deepening sense of personal guilt and personal responsibility. 2 “ The soul that sinneth, it shall die, the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.”
1 Isaiah 6:5 2 Ezekiel 18:20. This is also true of righteousness as of evil: “ The righteous man shall deliver only his own soul by his righteousness; for though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall deliver but their own souls by their righteousness.” Nor shall righteousness at one time prevent judgment if a soul relapse into wickedness; nor shall his former wickedness be reckoned against him on his turning to righteousness. 2 Responsibility belongs to individual souls for actual things done and for nothing else. In the last eight chapters of Ezekiel’s prophecy we have a picture of the Kingdom of God in its final and perfect state. The ruling conception is that of Jehovah dwelling in visible glory in His sanctuary in the midst of His people, and a corresponding holiness as the condition on Israel’s part which such a relation involves. The institutions and symbolism are priestly both because Ezekiel himself was a priest and deeply imbued with the traditions of his office, and because of the priestly influence of the age as exhibited by the “ Priestly Code “ and the “ Law of holiness “which criticism has assigned to that period. According to the Deuteronomist Jehovah was the Holy One, and He chose Israel that they might be to Him “an holy people.” The spirit of holiness to Jehovah was ethically exhibited by love to God and love to man, as the spring of all human action. Being holy to Jehovah they must love, serve, and worship Him only, and that at the one place He has chosen, and not go after other gods. On its manward side this holiness 1 Ezekiel 14:12-20 2 Ezekiel 33:10-30. is exhibited by love towards their neighbours, by kindness and charity towards the poor, the widow, the orphan, the Levite, and the stranger; and by all works of righteousness and goodness. In this revelation of the moral and righteous character of God, and of the holiness and glory of His Name, and the new and spiritual relation He sustains to Israel and to all nations and people; in the revelation of the value of the individual soul, of the evil of sin and of the need and efficacy of repentance, and the creation of a new heart and of a right spirit within, in order to fulfil the law of God, we have some of the brightest gems of spiritual truth to be found in the records of divine revelation, and a decided forward movement in the development of revelation.