| Abraham
and "three monotheist siblings"
The assertion of three religious siblings ignores a uniquely Christian perspective—the promise to Abraham is realised in Jesus Christ. In New Testament testimony to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God is not unitarian but intimate, offering transformative possibilities for all people. In continuity with Abraham’s faith in the word of God, faith in Christ represents a new possibility for righteousness, anticipated in Israel, as gift and life in the Spirit. v Abraham represents the antithesis of religious tribal heritage and therefore sibling status. By faith, Abraham receives a citizenship beyond any natural, sociological or regional heritage. This same possibility now exists for those with faith in Christ. For Paul, the promise to be the father of many nations is realised messianically. Jesus Christ crucified and risen is anticipated in Isaac as a child of promise through the creativity of God beyond any paternal possibility. As father of those with faith in the creativity of God who calls to be things that are not, the promise to Abraham resists any claim to religious tribal heritage. The gospels also relativise any claim to sibling status by heritage. In Matthew and Luke, John the Baptist mocks the claim to being children of Abraham by heritage—God can make children of Abraham out of stones. Similarly, John resists any claim to paternal heritage; for Luke, Abraham is the father of those for whom God alone is their saving hope. Children of Abraham are determined by the creativity of God. For Abraham, the possibility of God’s promise comes to fruition in Isaac and similarly, within this continuing story, in Jacob as the chosen twin of previously barren Rebekah. For the nations, the promise to Abraham is realised in the risen Christ and Pentecost. Any claim to religious sibling status on the basis of heritage is superfluous in the light of promise, which for Christians is realised as a new creation in Christ. In Christ, all nations are siblings. An appeal to piety founded on paternal or tribal heritage annuls faith in the creative word of gospel. v Christian faith articulates the reality of God beyond a religious category—“monotheism” as a generic distinction within various theisms, such as polytheism or pantheism.* Monotheism is inadequate for conceiving Israel’s redeeming lord who kills and makes alive, wounds and heals in vocative and intimate relationship with a people called to give testimony to the lord’s righteousness. Israel’s experience is laden with suffering, as indeed the lord suffers the oscillations of Israel’s faithfulness and infidelity. The lord in Israel represents a scandalous impassioned participation in the life of a nation called to distinctiveness by the word alone. God disclosed in Christ crucified is a scandal and folly that has always resisted assimilation into any generic category of theism. In New Testament testimony, God is disclosed in filial intimacy—in the Son and communion of the Holy Spirit. Is there any parallel then, between faith in God the Father of Jesus Christ and obeisance within a monotheism that installs potentially limitless demand—demand that cannot be tempered by the humanity of God with humans in their weakness as Emmanuel, God with us? Because God was in Christ reconciling the world and Christ the Lord is present as gift in the Spirit, Christians believe in God of Advent, Easter and Pentecost. This testimony remains otherwise than anything generic monotheism perceives or articulates. Jesus was not one among many prophets. From the beginning, Christians confessed that Jesus is Lord and believed that God raised him from the dead. Christian Scripture shows the glory of God as covenant lord in Israel and now disclosed in grace and truth in Jesus Christ as the sibling of humanity and saviour of all. Christian testimony endorses the impassioned disclosure of God in human life, announcing a mystery that is glimpsed in the suffering servant of Israel and disclosed in Jesus Christ in whom the passion of God is expressed seamlessly in grace and truth. The gospel discloses God’s grace for the ungodly, suffering and absorbing the sum of human prodigality in the Son. In his risen life, prodigals are welcomed to new life as the Father’s children. In Jesus Christ we see the true image of God as to character; in him we encounter the integral character of human life before God. The Holy Spirit is everywhere present, mediating these two, image and character, in the one person—at once the intimate disclosure of God and the definitive expression of humanity. v Abraham’s faith anticipates faith in Christ as the source of righteousness that is anticipated in Israel as a living word inscribed within. Christians are not a “People of the Book” but a community of Christ the incarnate Word—the living voice of Scripture that is heard in freedom for responsibility energised by the Holy Spirit. Advocates for three ethical siblings of Abraham appropriate selected civic ideals and law negotiated before forums of reason and deemed universal as a sur-real dimension beyond religious particularity. Deputed monotheist siblings are assumed to be in conflict only in their particularity not in their ethical essence, which is often expressed in clichés of global harmony. Ironically, people can easily take the clichés and reject any religious dimension! For Christians, righteousness in both reception and expression is a gift that sustains a unique expression of life in Christ. Neither Abraham nor Jesus Christ is an abstract symbol for ideals that assumedly represent the universal impetus of three ethical systems. Contradicting any general ethical principle, the promise to Abraham is tested in the command to offer Isaac. The command is a double-bind—it appears to negate the very means of God’s promise being fulfilled. In this scandalous event, Abraham’s faith in God’s word of promise is tested against any human possibility or ethical norm. (Kierkegaard) The promise or word of God alone must be trusted if, for the willing hearer, it is not to lapse into absurdity as a perennial offence to human sentiment. Here, the offence concerning Isaac must not be minimised; it is the paradox of trusting the word of God. The test of Abraham is only comprehended in Israel’s perennial trial of trusting the word of God that can kill even as it gives life; it also anticipates Christian testimony to resurrection and faith in the creativity of God who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord. In Christian Scripture, encompassing the anticipations of Moses, the prophets and wisdom in Israel, God calls to personal and volitional responsibility through transformed life in Christ. This is neither tribal nor religious but participation in the future of God becoming present—which Abraham saw by faith in the promise of God and Christians experience by faith as a reality in the Spirit. v Christian faith does not endorse three monotheist siblings of Abraham but Christ crucified and risen in whom all nations are siblings. The gospel offers every person, devout or ungodly, unmerited possibilities in grace; the gospel is for sinners—those who make no claim to intrinsic righteousness by heritage or deed. Appeal
to Abrahamic heritage as a basis for sibling status and common law within a mutual
unitarianism is antithetical to faith in God’s transforming creativity and intimacy
in Jesus Christ. This is the gospel of God that Christians affirm. Reference:
Kierkegaard Fear and Trembling |
