24 INHERITANCE, SERVITUDE, AND SONSHIP I prayed therefore unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin: Lest the land whence thou broughtest us out say, Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he hath brought them out to slay them in the wilderness. Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm (Deut. 9:26-29).
The theocentric reference point here is God's legal status as Israel's owner. Israel was God's inheritance. To the extent that Israel extended its national inheritance, God would extend His. This relationship was representative. Israel was required to act as God's agent, even as Adam was required to act as God's agent.
Moses as the Replacement Patriarch Moses summarized here the results of his verbal exchange with God in Exodus 32, when God had offered to establish Moses as the patriarch of a new nation. That exchange had involved God's offer of sonship to Moses, in effect making him a new Abraham.
And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever. And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people (Ex. 32:9-14).
Moses had immediately interceded with God by appealing to God's reputation. If God slew Israel, the Egyptians would say that He could not deliver on His promises. This would tarnish God's reputation, Moses implied. Moses appealed to the integrity of God's name, not to the non-existent integrity of Israel. God honored this appeal to His own honor. He spared Israel.
God had promised Moses an inheritance: a new nation. As the patriarch of such a nation, Moses would be acclaimed and honored. In response, Moses reminded God that it was God's honor that was primary. As the patriarch of a new nation, Moses would gain the authority to direct their future, to lead them in the paths that he would choose. In effect, this new nation would become Moses' servant, his inheritance. His name would be on them. Moses would in fact replace Abraham as the founding patriarch, for the promise to Abraham would be broken by the destruction of Israel. Either Israel would not conquer in the fourth generation, contrary to God's promise (Gen. 15:16), or else Abraham's name would be extended in history only by Moses' adopting a new nation. But that would have violated Jacob's promise regarding Judah's bearing of the sword until Shiloh came (Gen. 49:10). Moses countered God's offer by invoking the names of the patriarchs with whom God had made His covenant. That is, he appealed to God's word. Finally, in the speech to the conquest generation, he said that he had told God that Israel was God's inheritance (Deut. 9:26, 29). To have given Moses a completely new inheritance, God would have had to disinherit Israel completely. That would have been the same as disinheriting His own word, Moses implied. This argument saved Israel, which remained God's inheritance.
God's Name Was on Israel God had placed His name on the Israelites through His covenant with Abraham. He had changed Abram's name to Abraham (Gen. 17:5). Similarly, he had changed Jacob's name to Israel (Gen. 32:28). The authority to name someone is a mark of foundational authority. Adam named the animals (Gen. 2:19); then he named Eve (Gen. 2:23). In both cases, God had brought to Adam the living objects to be named. Adam was the father of the human race. God had created Adam, marking God as mankind's father. God's authority was higher than Adam's, for He had created Adam and had named Adam. In this judicial sense, God's name was on Adam.
Because God had delegated to Adam authority over the creation (Gen. 1:26), He had Adam name the living creatures under his immediate authority. So, God's name was on the creation directly, for He had created it, yet it was also on the creation indirectly, because Adam had named the animals, and His name was on Adam. The world is therefore God's lawful inheritance, both directly and indirectly. God's authority is both direct (providential) and indirect (covenantal). That is to say, His authority is simultaneously unmediated and mediated. This is why the Bible affirms both God's absolute predestination and man's full responsibility for his own actions. "And truly the Son of man goeth, as it was determined: but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed!" (Luke 22:22).
God had disinherited Adam by cursing his body and the ground for his transgression (Gen. 3:17-19) and casting him out of the garden (Gen. 3:24). But before issuing His curse, God had promised the serpent that Eve would have an heir who would bring negative sanctions against the serpent's seed (Gen. 3:15). God did not execute Adam on the day of Adam's transgression, for to have done so would have cut off Adam's seed. This would have made impossible the promised seed's ability to bring sanctions against the seed of the serpent. God extended common grace -- a gift unmerited by the recipients -- in the form of extended life and dominion in history to the serpent, to Eve, and to Adam. He did this for the sake of the promised seed.(1) This seed was Jesus Christ, who would inherit through Abraham. Paul wrote: "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ" (Gal. 3:16).
God's name is on God's Son. His Son was incarnate in history in the person of Jesus Christ. God's name was therefore also on Abraham, for through Abraham would God's incarnate Son come in history. There was no escape from this judicial naming. As surely as the promised seed would come in history to crush the head of the serpent, God's name was on Abraham and his descendants. As surely as Adam was God's servant, Abraham and his descendants were God's servants. This office of servantship was in fact sonship. God told Moses: "And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn" (Ex. 4:22). But how had Israel been restored to sonship after God's disinheritance of Adam? Through covenantal adoption.
Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live (Ezek. 16:1-6).
Israel was God's inheritance because His name was on Israel through adoption. God had named Jacob Israel, which reflected His position as Israel's adopter. God's inheritance was His possession. The entire nation was spoken of by Moses as being God's inheritance. It was this judicial claim by God on national Israel which alone had saved Israel from God's wrath. By invoking the legal language of inheritance, Moses had stayed the hand of God at the time of the golden calf. Now Moses reminded his listeners of their position as God's inheritance. But this inheritance was reciprocal. God became Israel's inheritance. Moses stated this explicitly with respect to the Levites, who had no landed inheritance in Mosaic Israel. "Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the LORD is his inheritance, according as the LORD thy God promised him" (Deut. 10:9). What was true of Levi as the priesthood of Israel in relation to the other tribes was also true of Israel as the priesthood of humanity in relation to the other nations.
From Servitude to Sonship This judicial position of being God's inheritance is a position of blessedness. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD: and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance" (Ps. 33:12). Nevertheless, to be part of another person's inheritance is to be his slave. Possessing such an inheritance down through the generations was lawful in Israel under the jubilee code, but this inter-generational slavery was limited to heathen slaves who had begun their term of bondage when they were outside of the national covenant. "Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour" (Lev. 25:44-46).
This Mosaic law revealed a covenantal principle: better to be a slave in the household of faith than to be a free man outside the covenant. This principle did not end with Jesus' fulfillment of the jubilee law (Luke 4:18-21). Its administration did, however. Under the New Covenant, the highest ideal is liberty: "Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather" (I Cor. 7:21). This liberty is possible because the covenant of redemption is no longer tied exclusively or uniquely to membership in any geographically and historically bounded nation. The mediatory status of national Israel in the Mosaic covenant of redemption is forever annulled. Old Covenant Israel is no longer God's son. Old Covenant Israel was definitively disinherited at the crucifixion: the veil of the temple separating the holy of holies from the common area was torn from top to bottom (Matt. 27:52). Old Covenant Israel was progressively disinherited through its persecution of the New Testament church, and finally disinherited at the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. After that, Old Covenant Israel ceased to exist. Its successor, rabbinic Judaism, possesses neither a temple nor an animal sacrifice system. The covenantally valid sacrificial fires of the temple were extinguished forever when the unauthorized fire lit by a pair of Roman soldiers burned the temple to the ground.(2) The Mosaic covenant has been forever annulled.
Under the Mosaic covenant, servanthood was a blessing because it was a form of preliminary sonship. The possibility of redemption from bondage was always present through adoption by another Israelite.(3) Meanwhile, the servant was under the household covenant of the master. This brought blessings that were not available outside the household of faith.
The Mosaic covenant was itself a form of sonship that involved servantship. The transfer of the inheritance from father to son was marked by a change in practical status from servant to son. We see this illustrated in the New Covenant's replacement of the Old Covenant. Because the New Covenant has replaced the Old Covenant, covenant-keeping gentiles can become sons.
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ (Gal. 3:26-4:7).
With the advent of the Son of God in history, Israel was offered its long-awaited opportunity to move from inheritance-servitude to inheritance-sonship. The price of this transition was two-fold: 1) Israel's public acknowledgment of Jesus as the messiah; 2) Israel's public consent to the extension of adoptive sonship status to the prodigal sons, i.e., the gentiles. But Old Covenant Israel, like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:28), was hard-hearted. The older brother in the parable complained to his father that the father had never slain a fatted calf for him. Where was his reward as the firstborn son? This was Israel's constant complaint to God. "Where is our reward? We have been faithful. Where is our fatted calf?" Moses warned them in this passage: with the golden calf in Israel's background, they should all be content with the fact that God had not slain the nation at the foot of the altar.
A recurring theme in the Old Covenant is the rebelliousness of the older brother, whose inheritance ordinarily was the double portion (Deut. 21:17). Instead, the younger son inherited because of the older brother's rebellion, e.g., Seth over Cain, Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Joseph over Reuben, David over Eliab, and ultimately Jesus over Adam. The rebellious firstborn resents the faithful second-born. "And Eliab his eldest brother heard when he spake unto the men; and Eliab's anger was kindled against David, and he said, Why camest thou down hither? and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart; for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle" (I Sam. 17:28). Then the younger brother inherits through his covenantal faithfulness.
The Jews should have remembered all this when Jesus told His parable of the prodigal younger brother who repented and the stiffnecked older brother who complained. The older brother refused to rejoice with his father at the return of the younger brother in humility. His father's joy meant nothing to him; he cared only about the honor shown to his prodigal brother. His brother's humility had regained his access to the household and its rewards. What was the public mark of his brother's humility? His willingness to enter his father's household as a servant, not as a son (Luke 15:21). He understood that servantship is preferable to life outside the household of faith. This realization is the only basis of a return to sonship for prodigal sons. The sons of Adam are all prodigal sons.
Conclusion Moses designated Israel as God's inheritance. Their status as God's inheritance placed them in the judicial position of servants, yet also as lawful sons. They owed God service, for the inheritance is lawfully at the disposal of the heir. They were also subordinate to God as the lawful heir. This is why Jesus' parable of the servants who kill the heir of the master so outraged the Jews (Matt. 21:38-46).
The inheritance does not exercise authority over its owner. Moses made it clear to them that their status as God's inheritance placed them in a special judicial position: subordinate. What he did not say, but which was implied by biblical theology, is this: legitimate sonship always begins with servantship. Even sin-free Adam was not allowed to touch all of God's inheritance. Servantship is the training required of all lawful sons. As the inheritance of God, Israel could prove its legal status as the son of God. Israel would then inherit the kingdom of God. The implied warning was clear: should Israel rebel against its judicial status as God's inheritance -- as bondservants in the household of faith -- God would disinherit Israel, just as He had threatened to do after the golden calf incident. Next time, there might not be a Moses to plead with God for mercy.
Footnotes:
1. Gary North, Dominion and Common Grace: The Biblical Basis of Progress (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987), pp. 57-59.
2. See Chapter 23, above: section on "The Day of the Lord."
3. Gary North, Leviticus: An Economic Commentary (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1994), pp. 510-11.
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