5
THE GOLDEN ERA OF SOLOMON: THE DISCIPLINE OF BLESSING
In Part III of this series
we studied the rapid decline of human civilization after Noah’s immediate
family settled the continents, mapped the earth, distributed the animals, and erected
architectural masterpieces. In only a few centuries, the lust of the flesh, the
lust of the eyes, and the pride of life had worked their effect like leaven.
The “Noahic Bible” was in serious danger of being wholly forgotten in every
people group so God chose to start a new work with Abraham. The collective life
of civilization had become perverted by sin so a new environment needed to be
made.
Through Abraham’s
pilgrimage, the exodus, the giving of the law, the conquest and settlement, and
the rise and reign of David, God brought a missionary nation into existence.
We’ve already seen some of this nation’s corporate life or “culture”. The
Israelites had laws, courts, civil government, national holidays, and a
national temple for the real king, Yahweh. In this chapter we turn to a more
careful treatment of the counter-culture produced by God acting through Israel.
What were the fruits of God’s special work in this nation, culturally speaking?
How did Israel’s culture differ from that of the surrounding pagan nations?
After looking at human
culture with the Israelite model, we will examine what we have discovered about
the sanctification process in our lives as believers. Many believers down
through Church history have really struggled with how to relate personal faith
to public culture. Even in evangelical and fundamental circles there are uneasy
lines of debate on this topic. How much should a believer involve himself in
the culture of this world? What is a believer to do with natural talents for
cultural expression? How can a believer avoid spiritual and intellectual
“schizophrenia”? (Read here I Kings 2-10; Proverbs; Ecclesiastes; and Song of
Songs)
What is culture? The
dictionary definition is “the concepts, habits, skills, arts, instruments,
institutions, etc., of a given people in a given period.” Traditionally culture
is viewed as a religiously and ethically “neutral” description of social life
since on a pagan basis religious and ethics emerge from, and are defined by,
the culture. Occasionally, history shocks mankind with something like
cannibalism or the Nazi phenomenon so that even committed unbelievers slip into
moral judgments upon culture.
Generally, however, “every culture
does what is right in its own eyes.” And woe upon any Christian missionary who
tries to “impose” his “alien” ethics on those
living in a pagan culture!
The Bible gives us a godly
counter-example of culture in the life of Israel, especially the blessing
experienced under David’s son, King Solomon. Examination of that culture in its
golden era can yield some guidance for us today in dealing with cultural
issues. Let’s look at Israel’s cultural fruit and then at its root. Israel’s
Cultural Fruit in Solomon’s Era. The forty year era under Solomon reveals what
culture looks like when the Holy Spirit actively blesses a nation. Numerous
construction projects were finished throughout the land; vast holdings of
silver and gold were built up in the national treasury; Israel’s territorial
holdings were at a maximum; nearly universal peace prevailed; and Israel had a
world-wide testimony (I Kings 10:14-29; II Chron. 9:13-28). One of the greatest
achievements, however, is rarely recognized by Bible or history students: the
rise of literary wisdom in Israel during this era. Great emphasis was placed
upon the production of books like Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song
of Songs. In fact, the entire third section of the Hebrew Old Testament can be
viewed as a repository of wisdom literature—a section of the Bible whose parts
were avidly studied, collected, and/or composed during Solomon’s time. Jewish
scholar Robert Gordis, while differing from our view of authorship date,
discusses the wisdom literature of the Bible:
“When the full scope of
Hebrew Wisdom is taken into account, it becomes clear that the third section of
the Bible, the Kethubim [“writings”] is not a miscellaneous collection, but, on
the contrary, possesses an underlying unity, being the repository of Wisdom. .
. .Both the composition and the rendition of the Psalms required a high degree
of that technical skill which is Hokmah. . . .Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes,
obviously belong in a Wisdom collection. . . .Lamentations is a product of Hokmah
in its technical sense. . . .The book of Daniel, the wise interpreter of
dreams, obviously is in place among the Wisdom books. . . .[1]
The Bible records Solomon as
the fountainhead of much of the wisdom which was behind this wisdom literature
(I Kings 4:29-34). Following his father, David, as messianic king, Solomon led
the nation not only in civil affairs but also religious and cultural affairs.
Through his powerful gift of wisdom Solomon exercised a mighty influence on
Israelite culture. Let’s look further into wisdom as the source of culture.
The Root of Israel’s
Cultural Fruit. What shall we say about this wisdom that lay at the root of the
construction projects, the economic prosperity, and the great literary
production of Israel during this golden era? What about biblical wisdom
nourished Israel and King Solomon to be so creative?.7 Wisdom that is biblical
is more than mere “rules of success”; it is deeply related to God as Creator.
The classic biblical reference is Proverbs 8. This chapter amplifies the
earlier statement of Proverbs that “the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of
wisdom” (1:7). Biblical wisdom goes deeper than political skill and economic
blessing (8:15-18). Biblical wisdom is the basis of all creation; it preceded
the creation of the universe (8:22-31). Every detail of the heavens and earth
is a product of wisdom. Wisdom is the expression of God’s creativity.[2]
Therefore all the practical, everyday rules of wisdom are derivatives of the
prior wisdom of God. They are finite reflections of His genius. Man’s
creativity mimics (on a finite scale) God’s creativity. Let’s observe how God’s
wisdom played out in Solomon’s golden era.
(1) Biblical wisdom gave
unity to all the details of life. Behind each and every event, object, and person lies
God’s overarching creative genius. Solomon and his disciples, therefore,
studied and enjoyed every aspect of the creation—not as separate “specialties”
isolated from each other, but as diversities among unity. As Dr. Whybray notes:
“The interest of the men who
surrounded David and Solomon were not confined to politics. These men
constituted the cultural elite of the nation, and the educational system by
which they had been trained prepared its pupils not merely for a professional
career but for the enjoyment of life in all its aspects, making no distinction
between the ethical, social, political, and cultural, but regarding them all as
comprised within the single notion of the “good”. . . .[3]
The biblical wisdom
literature reflects this wide scope of interest: Job deals with suffering,
Ecclesiastes with early philosophic reflection on mortal life, Song of Songs
with marital love and sex, Psalms and Chronicles with musical expressions of
praise, Daniel with national strategy in light of God’s strategy, and Proverbs
with attitudes toward work and social life. The very structure of much of this
literature, relying upon the use of metaphor, assumes an underlying unity
between the truth illustrated and the illustration! From this deep sense of
unified design of the Creator, biblical wise men were able to be “renaissance
men” rather than as the “specialists” of our day.
(2) Biblical wisdom applied
to all men—Israelite and pagan alike. If true wisdom comes from God as Creator, it
follows that all men face God’s design and purpose everywhere they look.
Although mankind has fallen, even in their sin they can’t escape God’s
ordinances for creation. For example, the divine institutions we studied in
Part II—responsible labor, marriage, family, and civil authority—are
manifestations of unavoidable wisdom. Unbelievers, in spite of their rebellion,
in everyday practice continue to follow most of the wisdom principles of these
social institutions.
Israel’s cultural
development under God’s Kingdom program, therefore, utilized pieces of wisdom
that came from surrounding pagan nations. Granting that the design of the
Temple came from direct revelation to David (I Chron. 28:11-12), the actual
construction of the Temple was accomplished through the Hamitic craftsmen from Tyre
(I Kings 5; II Chron. 2). Solomon’s merchant marine was largely managed by
Gentile seamen (I Kings 9:26-28). The literary style of Proverbs has many
affinities with Egyptian writings and mentions what seems to be gentile sources
(Prov. 30:1ff; 31:1ff). The book of Job recalls the gentile roots of
civilization just after Noah. All men, Israelite and pagan alike, share some
wisdom by virtue of their being created in God’s image.
(3) Biblical wisdom when
followed gave blessing and when rejected gave cursing. Just as Sinaitic Covenant
defined kingdom rule with blessing and cursing predicated upon obedience
or disobedience to the divine King, so biblical wisdom defined providential rule
with blessing and cursing. Sinful rebellion by all men against their Creator
leads inevitably to rebellion against everything that reminds them of that
Creator, such as His designs in creation, his everyday rule through nature in
which man lives. Thus fallen man inevitably becomes foolish (Rom. 1:21-22; Eph.
4:17). By the time in history that Israel became an established nation in the
land, most of the other nations had lost their initial storehouse of wisdom
from Noah. Paganization of civilization spread foolishness and its reward of
cursed cultures.
When God gave His laws at Mt.
Sinai, therefore, this new revelation brought with it renewed wisdom. In
Deuteronomy 4:6 Moses insisted that the Sinaitic law code was a repository of
“wisdom. . .in the sight of all nations.” The laws and statutes fit with how
God created the universe. Wisdom, in other words, came to Israel right from the
start. During Solomon’s golden era the Israelites became more and more
conscious of the implications of wisdom for everyday life. Real success in life
depended upon following wisdom as Proverbs so clearly teaches.
(4) Biblical wisdom gave a
framework for creativity. When God assigned Adam and all mankind through him the task of
“subduing the earth”, one of the earliest assignments was to “name the animals”
(Gen. 2:19-20). Significantly, God left Adam to come up with whatever names he
wanted. Those names were to remain as the proper names of the animals. God did
not compel Adam to name animal “X” with a certain name; it was Adam’s choice
completely. Adam thus continued God’s prior naming work which had stopped on
the third day (note Gen. 1:5, 8,10). In like fashion, the wise men of Solomon’s
time extended the original Sinai law code that had “named” portions of life.
They creatively added “names” to various activities of life, producing new
literature, architectural constructions, musical works, and business ventures.
(5) Biblical wisdom spread
throughout the world. I believe that the wisdom of Israel had a profound effect beyond
Israel’s borders. I think it will one day be shown that the strange, sudden
emergence of Greek philosophy that largely shaped Western civilization was an
effect of Israel’s culture. This effect came to Greece through the famous
merchantmen of the Mediterranean, the Phoenicians.
It is well known that King Solomon
had very intimate contacts with the Phoenician civilization along the Palestine
coastal areas near Tyre (I Kings 5:1- 12; 9:11-27). After Solomon, King Ahab
later married into Sidonian royalty (I Kings 16:31). Not unexpectedly, Israel’s
literary movement shows definite signs of intercourse with Phoenicia. Although
he dated much of the OT wisdom literature later than bible-believing scholars,
the famous Johns Hopkins archeologist, W. F. Albright, discovered an
ideological and literary link between Israel and Phoenicia. His late dating of
the OT wisdom books caused Albright to see the influence mainly from Phoenicia
to Israel, but if his observations are read in the light of an earlier dating
of these books, his remarks point to a reverse influence from Israel to
Phoenicia. Writes Albright:
“In a forthcoming book. . .I
shall deal with the origins of the new ways of thinking which seem suddenly to
appear among the Greeks in the early sixth century, B.C. I trace them back to a
general intellectual movement which probably first appeared in Phoenicia, from
which it spread more or less contemporaneously to Israel on the one hand and to
the Aegean shores on the other, . . .The roots of this movement can be traced
in the earlier literature of Israel. . . .We have in Qeheleth [Ecclesiastes]
some of the raw material on which the earliest Greek philosophers built their
metaphysical structures. . . .”[4]
The Rot in Israel’s Cultural
Fruit. The
prophetic writers of Kings point out that even in the golden era of Solomon a
cultural “rot” had already set in. Solomon allowed pagan religions to exist in
Jerusalem, the cultic center of the nation, through his many wives whom he
married often for solidifying international treaties. It was political practice
then, as even among European royalty in recent centuries: marriages between
national leaders tended to solidify international treaties and relationships.
Such marriages were prohibited by the source document of Israel’s wisdom—the
Sinaitic Covenant (Deut. 17:17). Many of his wives came from cultures from
which it was
forbidden to take wives and
with which it no covenants were to be made (Exod. 23:26-33; 34:12-16). It was
understood that wives could be taken if they were
converted to faith in Yahweh
as in the
case of Caleb in the book of Joshua and Boaz in the book of Ruth. Nowhere,
however, do we read of Solomon’s wives
converting to faith in
Yahweh..10
An interesting observation
occurs here: religious apostasy, international treaties, and religiously-mixed
marriages are tied together. What is the connection? Worship of the Creator and
of the creature are mutually exclusive: they represent two completely different
presuppositions and ultimate values. International treaties and marital
covenants, however, both require common values. Marriage as the second divine
institution is the primary interpersonal covenant that creates a family. Out of
the family come beliefs and values that in turn spread into society. In fact,
precisely because marriage is so primary is why it was used to solidify
international treaties. Solomon succumbed to a practice that established a
compromised foundation for himself, his nation, and his nation’s foreign
relations.
How could such a wise man be
so foolish? His struggle is revealed in the book of Ecclesiastes. Wisdom,
precisely because it originates in God’s mind, can never be wholly comprehended
by man. “No man can find out the work that God makes from the beginning to the
end” (Eccl. 3:11). Even Solomon with the greatest wisdom possibly in the history
of mankind could not put all understanding and knowledge under his view and
comprehend it. He could not “capture” it and make it his servant. Wisdom
remained for him as the wisest of men an illusive thing. He had to conclude
that in the final analysis what mattered was memory of our Creator, respect for
His Authority, and obedience to his commandments whether understood or not.
Faith, in other
words!
Instead of submitting his
wisdom under God’s wisdom given originally in the Sinaitic Covenant, Solomon
tried to establish wisdom on his own using his God-given skills according to
his own planning. He sought to establish security for Israel in the world
according to his own political analysis. He attempted to shape the Kingdom of
God according to his independent ideas of what it should be like. His mighty
gift of wisdom was used independently of the Giver. The high cost of this
endeavor we shall study in the next chapter.
Because of God’s election in
Abraham, the nation Israel experienced a special history much different from
the surrounding pagan gentiles. That is why God takes so much space in the Old
Testament to record selections from Israel’s history (Rom. 15:4). In this
chapter and those that follow we will seek to learn more about the truth of
sanctification. Sanctification, you will recall, is the doctrine of how the
saved become experientially holy in God’s sight. Sanctification relates to the
problem of evil in that it is the process of working out the ultimate
separation of good and evil in our souls..11
In Part III of this series
we learned about five aspects of sanctification through the Conquest and
Settlement period with its holy war. Let’s review the following table:
Table Showing the Aspects of Sanctification
|
Aspect of Sanctification |
Historical Illustration |
|
Positional &
Experiential Phases: position is what God does;
experience is what He wants us to do. |
Position = Abrahamic
Covenant promises; Experience = Sinaitic Covenant
commands |
|
Aim: to develop loyalty to
God |
Defeat at Ai; Victory at
Ajalon |
|
Means: law & grace |
Law = publicly revealed
will of God –protecting against licentiousness and irrationalism; declaration
of holy war; Grace = God’s repeated initiative
toward sinners in hiding—protecting against legalism and rationalism;
covenant renewal at Mt.Sinai & Moses’ intercession. |
|
Dimensions: long-term
growth & existentially present decisions |
Progressive occupation of
the land; obedience/disobedience cycles. |
|
Enemies: evil to be
eliminated under God’s sovereign power (world, flesh, devil) |
Indirect, not direct,
strategy against God’s enemies; Kadesh-barnea & Ai versus Jericho &
Ajalon |
Later, we learned more details
of these aspects by observing what God recorded in the Scripture concerning
David. To the positional and experiential phases of sanctification, God added
the Davidic Covenant and gave prophetic counsel, respectively. The aim of
sanctification was powerfully shown in the difference between David’s “higher
loyalty” concerning his leadership position and his pagan royal contemporaries.
He lived with both law and grace. Ever conscious that Yahweh, not himself as
human king, was the true source of law, David also treasured God’s grace. The
enemies of Israel were considered by David as Yahweh’s enemies, not his
personal enemies.
It was with the dimensions
of sanctification, however, that David’s life most significantly advanced God’s
revelation. How David was restored to fellowship with the Lord through
confession is a vital truth we must all know. Again, let’s review with a table:
Table Showing Restoration to Fellowship
Through Confession
Step in the Restoration Process |
Illustration in David’s life |
|
Conviction of Sin: being
made aware of the specific offense toward God, not just societal
consequences. |
Nathan’s “indirect
approach” & David’s realization that the SINS were against the Lord ONLY
(Ps. 51:4).. |
|
Confession of Sin:
repentant turning from autonomy (excuses and blame shifting) to submission to
the Cross as the sole point of contact with God (responsibility for the
sin and cleansing by Cross). |
David confesses his
disobedience, not merely feeling sorry for the consequences, and his need for
being cleansed “with hyssop” (Ps. 51:3,7); David aware of the
profound depth of his depravity from birth (Ps. 51:5-12). |
|
Restoration: eternal
forgiveness of God through the Cross but with temporal consequences not necessarily
removed. |
David restored to
witnessing to Yahweh’s truth & grace while continuing to suffer the
“fallout” of his sin (Ps. 51:13ff; other Psalms during the II Sam. 12-24 period. |
What did the golden era of Solomon
contribute to further understanding sanctification? The cultural fruit of
biblical wisdom expands upon the aim of sanctification. Deuteronomy 6:5 states
that the aim of sanctification is a thorough-going love for God that
encompasses the entire person: heart, soul, and strength. Such loyalty, because
it is exercised over all the details of life, is associated necessarily with
man’s culture. If Adam, for example, could not complete the mandate to subdue
the earth without producing culture, then culture and loyalty to God are
closely intertwined. What was true, beautiful, and pure in the Temple building,
the wisdom literature, the economic prosperity, and the education of Solomon’s
Israel publicly expressed the inner, private submission to the wisdom of
Yahweh.
The culture outwardly
manifested a corporate sanctification. Here are some elements in the aim of
sanctification that were shown.
Strong Sanctification
Produces Biblical Culture. Church history has been filled with debates over how personal faith
relates to public culture. Some have wholly capitulated to whatever the
surrounding culture established as the public “values”. For example, liberal
theologians, knowing that the gospel’s supernatural claims are offensive to
modern man, openly seek to change the gospel message into a “more meaningful”
appeal. In the delicate issue of origins, as we learned in Part II of this
series, liberal capitulationists have always sought to bury creation truths
under the reigning evolutionary dogma.
Others have accommodated to
the surrounding culture. They are believers, but somehow they feel embarrassed
by biblical details. Although their faith prevents them from doing as the
liberals who admittedly alter the entire message, the accommodationists try
strategies of “reinterpretation” of the biblical text, hoping to retain
“obedience” to the Bible while at the same time trying to embrace the main
ideas of the culture.
Still others know something
is wrong with the world system, but their solution is to attempt separation
from all present culture. Groups such as the Amish select the culture of a
previous era when Christian values predominated more than at present. This
selected culture is then “frozen” as their “norm”. Monasticism is another
variation of the separatist approach. A common evangelical version is to
disparage “secular” work and imply that the only worthwhile fruit in a
believer’s life is the fruit of evangelism and/or community life inside the
Church. Usually this idea comes out of those who are themselves “full-time”
Christian workers (as though the carpenter, plumber, and teacher aren’t abiding
in their respective “full-time” callings).
The lesson of Israel’s
golden era is that a “Bible-friendly” culture will arise in the present life if
believers seeking to be loyal to the God of Creation and Redemption strongly
dominate community life. Israel was called by God to establish a
“counter-culture” among the nations. Israelites were not to capitulate to
Canaan. They weren’t to accommodate Mosaic law to the prevailing local laws of
Palestine. And they weren’t to hide their God-given abilities to farm, to
ranch, to build, and to teach inside a monastery.
Christians at various times
in Church history understood this lesson. In the Middle Ages they founded hospitals
based upon the biblical principle that healing is a priestly calling. In the
years following the Reformation they molded political order according to an
understanding of depravity and the superiority of God’s law over man’s law.
Much early science grew out of the belief in God’s wisdom underlying all of
creation. Christians of these eras saw that to love God with all their heart
meant precisely that: to submit to His ways in everything they did, whether
“secular” or “sacred”. Rushdoony put the matter well:
“Unbelief does not give
superior wisdom, nor does regeneration make men idiots in the affairs of the
world, that we should turn the management of society over to unbelievers! Rather,
no man is better able to manage himself and the affairs of the world than the
instructed Christian, and it is the duty of the clergy to instruct believers in
all things according to the infallible Word of God.”[5]
The aim of sanctification,
then, as loyalty to God will, as it strengthens in the hearts of men, manifest
itself in every generation with some varying degrees of cultural fruit that is
“Bible-friendly”. Depth leads to breadth in sanctification. A Christian biology
teacher learns to love Jesus by honoring Him as the supernatural Creator of the
biblical kinds. A Christian businessman realizes that loving Jesus means
submitting to biblical economic principles. A Christian young person comes to
see that loving Jesus means accepting the authority resident in the divine
institutions of marriage, family, and civil government.
Biblical Culture Has A
Unified View of Life. In studying Solomon’s era, we noted that its foundation in biblical
wisdom gave unity to all the details of life. The mature believer doesn’t have
to live a life divided into air-tight compartments or specialties. He or she
can relax in the awareness that every detail of life is linked rationally to
every other detail in a perfect plan in God’s omniscience in spite of the fact
that this rational unity can never be fully visible to the finite intellect.
Such is the implication of loyalty to the omniscient Creator! A practical
result of this unified view of life is a genuine interest in every person that
comes along. What have they experienced of God’s design?
Whether believer or
unbeliever, every person at bottom is made in God’s image, dwells in God’s
world, and shall one day answer to Him. What an opportunity for evangelism!
Solomon must have had interesting conversations with world leaders who came to
him.
Another practical result is
that in the midst of all the details of life with their awesome diversity and
complexity, we realize that our peace comes only by trust and obedience to the
Lord. “Fear of Yahweh”, says Proverbs, is the beginning or starting point of
wisdom. Without that, life quickly degenerates into a pile of marbles. Since
each area of life is shaped by His Wisdom, His eternal plan, there really can
be no division of our lives into “religious” and “secular” compartments. The
unified view of life of biblical culture expresses the notion of loving the
Lord with all of our heart, mind, and soul.
Biblical Culture Points to
Future Victory.
If growing loyalty to God always produces something of biblical culture and a
unified view of all life under God, then final, complete loyalty to God must
produce a total biblical culture everywhere. When evil at last is separated
from the good, man will fulfill the original mandate to subdue the earth under
God. The purpose of man will be complete.
Here is the reason why
biblical wisdom is portrayed as a woman so often in Proverbs 1-9. The woman
fulfills the man in the dominion mandate of Genesis 1 and 2. The woman is
always pictured in the Bible as the “decorator” of existence; her presence
brings about the finished product. The Bible consistently portrays the woman as
the adorner or the one adorned with finery. In Exodus 35:22, 25-26; 38:8, for
example, it was the women who provided the Tabernacle with its finished beauty
by
contributing their jewelry
and sewing skills. At the end of history, the New Jerusalem is said to be
adorned like a bride (Rev. 21:2). Women are given specific NT instructions on
how to adorn properly (I Tim. 2:9; Titus 2:3-5; I Pet. 3:3-5) because in
unrighteousness they can adorn improperly and destroy what man has built (Prov.
14:1; Isa. 3:16-24).
When the Bible pictures
wisdom as “female”, then, it implies that wisdom completes man’s life by giving
him the finery, the beauty of decoration, of his existence. That finery, that
decoration, is biblical culture.
Such a final consummation is
demanded by creation. Since His Wisdom underlies all of creation (Prov. 8:22-31) and Christ
is the Wisdom of God (cf. John 1:1-5; I Cor. 1:30; Col. 1:16-17; Heb. 1:1-3;
11:3), that Wisdom “must one day come to the surface” and be expressed by
mankind through the Son of Man “that God might be all in all” (I Cor. 15:28)!
Anything less would be to stop short of what is right and proper.
Biblical culture to the
unbelieving pagan, therefore, is a frightening thing. By having done on a small
scale what God created man to do, biblical culture “reminds” him of the
foolishness of his rebellion. On his autonomous basis he can never fulfill his
proper place in history. Rebelling against wisdom in principle, he can never be
fulfilled. He has no part in the final consummation of human civilization under
the Son of Man. Every little piece of godly creativity reveals something of the
underlying Wisdom in creation. Like Cain hated the righteous behavior of Abel,
he hates the righteous testimony of biblical culture to God’s Wisdom.
Such hatred is why pagan
school teachers and college professors target for special ridicule and attack
the Puritans. To keep students from discovering the Puritan contributions to
biblical culture in the West, they portray Puritanism with Arthur Miller’s
distorted presentation in his play, “The Crucible.” Students are thus kept from
reading quality Puritan
authors like John Milton and John Bunyan or the writings of the Puritan leaders
in Massachusetts at the time of “The Crucible”.[6]
Biblical culture is a
counter-culture that disrupts paganized civilization because it points to a
different standard. As believers, therefore, grow in loyalty to God and express
more and more of their “circumcised heart”, a culture war must inevitably
start. And it is a war whose ultimate outcome is absolutely certain: total
victory. God shall separate the good from the evil and shall keep the one and
toss out the other.
Biblical Culture Expresses
Mature Adoration of God. When loyalty to God is strong enough to carry over into many different
areas of life, it discovers His Wise Design behind one part of creation after
another. Theologians refer to this testimony of underlying Wisdom as “general
revelation” in contrast to the “special revelation” given in the Bible..16
General revelation is everywhere: it’s found in the earth, in plants, in
animals, in the stars, in all subjects Solomon studied and then some!
No believer who has a true loyalty
to God can encounter such general revelation all around his or her environment
and not spontaneously praise Him. Such adoration of God burst forth from the
early scientists (many of whom were Puritans) just as it did from David in
Psalm 19:1-6. Here is why in the Kingdom to come, all the earth will be filled
with “the knowledge of Yahweh” (Isa. 11:9). His work in all creation will be
recognized by the faithful (Isa. 41:19-20). There will be a grand consummation
of adoration not only to God as Redeemer but also as Creator (Rev. 4:11).
Whenever a strong biblical
culture is present and God’s Wisdom is known, evangelism is mightily supported.
Unbelief is surrounded; it is on the run. Biblical culture establishes biblical
thought as the prevailing world view. In the Kingdom to come, the works of the
Lord will “be known in all the earth” (Isa. 12:5).
The Present Limits of
Biblical Culture. Solomon’s golden era did not last. We noted above that Solomon with
his great gift of wisdom still could not comprehend God’s thoughts and make
them his tools. He was deceived into thinking that his human wisdom was
sufficient to operate independently of God’s prior Wisdom. Instead of Lady
Wisdom being his help mate, Solomon sought security for himself and his kingdom
with pagan help mates from surrounding royal families. He ceased walking by
faith and thus began a program of fleshly works. His heart was “turned” from
the Lord, and the aim of sanctification was thwarted.
Biblical culture, therefore,
is contingent on the human level. It grows when there is strong loyalty to God in a
population. It dies when that loyalty wanes. Sadly, we shall watch the decline
of the Old Testament golden age culture for the next three chapters following.
It is much like Israel’s conquest of the land. God offered all of Palestine to
Israel yet because of unbelief this chosen nation was told at Bochim (Jud.
2:1-5, 20-23) that the conquest then underway would never be complete. The
Kingdom of God was postponed. In similar fashion, what could have been a
triumphant biblical culture under Solomon fell apart. It was dependent upon
faith, and the Israelites failed. A lasting biblical culture, therefore, awaits
the Messiah as David’s Greater Son just as the conquest awaits Him. Only then
will evil be cast aside and the good delivered.
Sanctification is not
complete until it is perfected. Increasingly during the next chapters of Old
Testament history you will notice the growing awareness that experiential
sanctification falls far short of ultimate sanctification. A cry arises through
the prophets for a future day when such ultimate sanctification is attained and
a Bible-friendly culture guaranteed of survival.
END NOTES FOR CHAPTER 1
1. Robert Gordis, Koheleth:
The Man and His World (3rd.
ed., New York: Schocken Books, 1968), p. 18f.
2. To see why wisdom must
play this role, see Part II of this series for details of the essence of God
and man.
3. R. N. Whybray, The
Succession Narrative (London: SCM Press, 1968), p. 56.
4. W. F. Albright, Yahweh
and the Gods of Canaan (Garden City: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1968), p. 259.
5. Rousas J. Rushdoony, “The
Heresy of the Faithful,” in Gary North, An Introduction to Christian Economics
(Nutley, NJ: Craig Press, 1973), p. 388.
6. To see the real situation
in Salem Massachusetts at the time portrayed in Miller’s “The Crucible”, read
serious histories of the period. So emotional is the anti-Puritan hatred that
the artist hired to do the cover for the video release of “The Crucible”
couldn’t get it right. On it is the claim that the “Puritans burned witches at
the
stake”.
In fact, they drowned them.