On the Road to Emmaus

In the last post, I proposed that the revelation of the divine name “Yahweh” to Moses at the burning bush is better translated “I will be” rather than “I AM.” Instead of relating to static categories of existence or other such metaphysical qualities Greek philosophers were interested in, it pertains to the future of God’s faithfulness to his word in time-space history. It has been said in many times and places that in ancient culture one’s name was not simply a tag enabling one to address another in conversation. Names convey character, quality and essence. If this is the case, and this name “I will be” is strategically unveiled in connection with the Exodus event, this means that the revelation of God’s self is not truly contained within the name, but in the yet outstanding future of God’s covenant faithfulness. In other words, if God’s name is “I will be,” the primary revelation of God lies in future historical events that confirm his faithfulness.

In theology this is referred to as revelation through history in contrast to inspiration. Historical revelation is conveyed objectively through occurrences and events in history. Inspiration is conveyed through subjective experiences, often in which the “word of God” is communicated. Both are important in the Biblical record, but the historical dimensions of revelation are often overlooked and emphasis unduly falls on the verbal dimensions of revelation. At times “revelation” becomes reducible to either the words of the Bible, specific “words from God,” or propositional statements about Christian truth. However, the concept of historical revelation conveys an idea we all intuitively know from everyday life: we know more about a person from what they do than from what they say about themselves. The repetition of propositional statements despite contrary concrete experiential evidence convinces few people of truth. To be loved in both word and deed is critical, but when loving words remain in the absence of loving action, the words become reduced to meaninglessness. It is extremely difficult to maintain a proposition “God is good” without historical evidence of God’s goodness.

Furthermore, the events of God in history cannot be simply translated into propositions in the same way we know from everyday life that verbal communication about an event cannot communicate the full wealth of meaning contained in the experience. This points to the depth of meaning in the historical revelation of God that is a necessary complement to revelation by inspiration. The person with the experience and the person with the report about the experience do not have the same meaning. If at this point an appeal to the Holy Spirit is made, how can the illuminative agency of the Spirit be understood verbally? Does the Spirit simply repeat the words of Scripture to us, or give us new ways of expressing them? If we understand that the Holy Spirit illuminates the words of Scripture as profoundly meaningful (through the generation of faith?), then this meaning (faith/belief/trust/assurance) must be recognized as something that is extra-verbal and extra-rational. It is not a given in the verbal concepts themselves.

Language and words are simultaneously translators and traitors of meaning because, even in the pinnacle of expression, they fail to fully convey “what the presence of meaning wishes to say about itself” (Derrida). Even if one believes that discourse represents reality (as opposed to constructing or constituting reality), one cannot say that discourse completely conveys reality, even if God is speaking. Therefore, informative and instrumental communication is incomplete. Reality is too big to fit into propositions.

Though seemingly “rediscovered” in the twentieth century, the authors of the Biblical text readily understood this concept as demonstrated by the emphasis on the historical revelation of God. It was not sufficient to say that God was good, loving, patient, forgiving, etc. The very words demand their historical demonstration lest their sincerity be indubitably falsified. Many verses describe how God is known through what he does, particularly the exodus events. The primary way the people of Israel understood themselves and God historically was through the Exodus. He is the freedom God, the faithful God, the God of deliverance:

Ex. 7.5 – “The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst.”
Exod. 20:2-3 – “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before Me.
Ex. 29.46 – “They shall know that I am the LORD their God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them; I am the LORD their God.
Deut. 4:35 – To you it was shown that you might know that the LORD, He is God; there is no other besides Him.
Deut. 7:8-9 – the LORD brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 “Know therefore that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments;

Even more significant than the link between revelation and the exodus event is the expected revelation of God in a future definitive intervention in which God would show himself to be faithful to his word in restoring his people.

This concept is often seen with the phrase “in that day/then you will know that I am the Lord:”

Is. 49.23 – “Kings will be your guardians, And their princesses your nurses. They will bow down to you with their faces to the earth And lick the dust of your feet; And you will know that I am the LORD; Those who hopefully wait for Me will not be put to shame.
Is. 60.16 – “You will also suck the milk of nations And suck the breast of kings; Then you will know that I, the LORD, am your Savior And your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.
Ezek. 37.13 – “Then you will know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people.
Hos. 2.20 – And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the LORD.
Joel 3.17 – Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, Dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain. So Jerusalem will be holy, And strangers will pass through it no more.

But the “then you will know” formula is not necessarily present:

Is. 25.9 – And it will be said in that day, “Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us. This is the LORD for whom we have waited; Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”
Is. 52.10 – The LORD has bared His holy arm In the sight of all the nations, That all the ends of the earth may see The salvation of our God.
Is. 66.13 – “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; And you will be comforted in Jerusalem.”
14 Then you will see this, and your heart will be glad, And your bones will flourish like the new grass; And the hand of the LORD will be made known to His servants, But He will be indignant toward His enemies.
Psa. 98.2 – The LORD has made known His salvation; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations. 3 He has remembered His lovingkindness and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
Ezekiel 36:36 – Then the nations that are left round about you will know that I, the LORD, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted that which was desolate; I, the LORD, have spoken and will do it.”

The final, definitive revelation of God comes at the end of history. Revelation of God is ultimately eschatological. This then means that, in a sense, all revelation we have of God now is partial and provisional. It awaits a final word yet to come. This “final word” comes at the end, when God renews all things.

Thus far, I have only been explicating this concept from Old Testament passages, but will illustrate it with simply one passage from the New Testament. Revelation 22:4 makes a startling declaration in saying that “they will see his face.” In the New Heavens and New Earth, the people of God who have overcome look into the very face of God. This is remarkable considering that strands of tradition explicitly state that those who see the face of God would die. Seeing the face of God means direct unmediated contact and full revelation. This realm is inaccessible to mortals. In the first chapter of John we are told that no one has seen God at any time. Paul says in 1 Corinthians that we “see in a glass dimly” and that even the best of us only “know in part.” However, when God renews all things, when he makes his definitive intervention and transformation of history, we will see him face to face. This full revelation awaits a time in the future when the fulfillment of every promise of God is made fully manifest. In the New Creation we will see God fully as He is. “Only God’s final revelation at the end of history will bring with it final knowledge of the content and truth of the act of God in Jesus of Nazareth. God alone has the competence to speak the final word about God’s work in history” (Wolfhart Pannenberg).

Related posts

• New Exodus – Part 1 – The Divine Name (3)
• Reading the Bible in the Right Direction (Part 4) – The Overarching Story of Scripture (14)
• Reading the Bible in the Right Direction (Part 2) (13)
• Pentecost – The Coming of the Holy Spirit (0)
• New Exodus – Part 3 – The Ending of Exile (5)